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I'm amazed that no one has suggested the most obvious answer: a lot of developers are just plain rude! Even if you don't want to help someone, there's a polite way of wording it. Unfortunately a lot of people in the SW dev community haven't figured that out yet. @Rayzar: They're under no obligation to help you, but at the same time they don't need to be unfriendly about it either.
"Recently I have tried approaching a few good developers through their blogs about various matters including advice on how to go about some projects I'm undertaking but I am surprised at the unfriendly responses I have received." I have some experience in this, so let me try to explain a couple of things that I learned in the "school of hard knocks". Once upon a time I was in a situation where I thought I could contr…
"Recently I have tried approaching a few good developers through their blogs about various matters including advice on how to go about some projects I'm undertaking but I am surprised at the unfriendly responses I have received." I have some experience in this, so let me try to explain a couple of things that I learned in the "school of hard knocks". Once upon a time I was in a situation where I thought I could contr…
Years ago, I volunteered to work on a project for the Free Software Foundation that had been started and stopped more than once, as no-one seemed motivated to actually complete it. I whipped out a very rough demo, and within days I was being mentored and having my work reviewed & critiqued by Richard Stallman.
His interest in me was surely toward getting the work done for the FSF, but what I learned from him has been very useful to me in other projects as well. I doubt I would have been taken seriously if I hadn't actually made a real effort at getting something done that Richard wanted done.
I've also worked with some top jazz musicians, and learned a lot from them, because... I paid them to help me on projects. I didn't go to them asking for advice; I hired them in their professional capacity to help me get something done, and they brought their advice with them. They may be willing to answer random questions from random people as well, but I'm sure I got a whole lot more out of hours in the studio with their undivided attention than I would have by sending an email or trying to talk to them after a concert.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what it is you're trying to do, and I may be misjudging your approach entirely (so forgive me if I'm way off the point), but I would recommend trying things yourself more. That is, ultimately, a huge aspect of "hacking". It's also, IMO, a much better way to learn most of the time, than being taught by someone else. Another reason I say that is that, as someone who helps run a programming-fo…
There's also a kind of mentality that lots of hackers seem to have: Let the bored one handle it. On IRC, in forums and elsewhere never ask somebody, show your problems instead and if their important enough, somebody bored enough will help you.
Regularly I see people jump on and say "can someone help" tumbleweed then they leave. But those who post a question and wait generally get an answer when someone notices - leisurely engagement a friend called it once.