31–40 of 80 posts
What a pretentious piece of writing, I can't stand this kind of goody two-shoes attitude. It's ok to be human and get upset every now and then. Heck, you might even take it out on someone. Apologise and move on, you don't have to become a buddhist and take the three breath vow - it's useless and unhealthy.
[09:00] Hi. [09:16] Hey, what's up. [09:23] I have a problem, do you have some time? [09:24] Sure, what's it about? [09:27] Have you worked with X thing before? I have to do Y thing but don't know how. [09:28] So, I just googled "how to do Y thing in X thing" and got this blog entry explaining in detail, and also this other Stack Overflow answer with a very similar problem. [09:29] Sec, gonna try that. [09:35] I got…
I had this problem as well. The same trivial shell scripting problems came up over and over. My solution was to write a static analysis tool (ShellCheck) that would recognize them automatically and with enough confidence would even auto-answer. It's gotten way more use than I ever expected. Haven't made much progress on the plaintext question problem though. Some day!
[09:00] Hi. [09:16] Hey, what's up. [09:23] I have a problem, do you have some time? [09:24] Sure, what's it about? [09:27] Have you worked with X thing before? I have to do Y thing but don't know how. [09:28] So, I just googled "how to do Y thing in X thing" and got this blog entry explaining in detail, and also this other Stack Overflow answer with a very similar problem. [09:29] Sec, gonna try that. [09:35] I got…
I have had plenty of dialogs like this with people who have no ability to look up something or, I often suspect, are too lazy. If this happens a more than a few times and it's clear they have no grasp of fundamentals ("I got this error "someVariable is not defined". What's it mean?") I send them a link with a tutorial or a book and tell them to read it.
[09:00] Hi. [09:16] Hey, what's up. [09:23] I have a problem, do you have some time? [09:24] Sure, what's it about? [09:27] Have you worked with X thing before? I have to do Y thing but don't know how. [09:28] So, I just googled "how to do Y thing in X thing" and got this blog entry explaining in detail, and also this other Stack Overflow answer with a very similar problem. [09:29] Sec, gonna try that. [09:35] I got…
It's a win-win, because either the asker learns they can solve their problems more quickly by Googling it themselves, or I can limit my responses to a rate that is below my daily (or weekly) annoyance threshold.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
New programmers usually don't have any exposition on what's an acceptable amount to ask and adding snark just deters them from sticking with it.
Excuse me if it comes off as snarky, but my main point is only to say that development is about three parts frustration and one part progress (and I'm being generous with the progress). You can't skip the frustration; it is what you are paid to do. Newcomers should be made aware of this, not to deter them, but to be transparent about what the job actually entails.
Getting frustrated is an emotional response, you don't have to get frustrated.
I'm willing to admit that maybe I'm not the best at social interaction. I think this article is on point though. I am unable to count the number of times I've gone to some random project community for assistance dealing with whatever problem I was having at the time to be met with someone telling me that what I'm doing is insane and shouldn't be done in the first place. It's taught me that I should just use these out…
I'm never bothered just because some particular OSS project sucks (after all, they are free). Rather, it's the fact that I've been suckered into using a sucky project – by network effects or false claims – that grinds my gears.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excuse me if it comes off as snarky, but my main point is only to say that development is about three parts frustration and one part progress (and I'm being generous with the progress). You can't skip the frustration; it is what you are paid to do. Newcomers should be made aware of this, not to deter them, but to be transparent about what the job actually entails.
But if you constantly get frustrated with newcomers, and another guy is always helpful and calm, the newcomers will gravitate to that other guy. If those newcomers advance, who are they more likely to help out with things? If they go to other companies, who are they likely to give a reference to? Getting frustrated is an emotional response, you don't have to get frustrated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am unable to count the number of times I've gone to some random project community for assistance dealing with whatever problem I was having at the time to be met with someone telling me that what I'm doing is insane and shouldn't be done in the first place. There should be an explicit three-way breakdown for this: 1. You're having trouble because of a bug, either yours or ours. If it's yours, the helpful thing is…
Well, on the flip side - I've had similar experiences to cosban's, and it usually goes like this: I'm neck-deep in a complicated scenario, and I'm stuck and can't figure out what to do next. I can ask for help, but it will take pages of explanation just to describe how I got where I am. Recognizing that everybody's (myself included) attention span only goes so far, I try to describe just the problem I've run into in…
It is not necessary personal nor lack of good intention, it is that experience with answering questions teaches you that it is overall most effective to check whether the problem can be solved differently as it often can be done.
With many things in life, it’s good to assume other people are not in the same situation as you. Just because you have all day to work on something doesn’t mean that the whole Internet has all day to help you. What percentage of your free time, for instance, will be spent compared to the percentage of free time of another person? And, what have you done to minimize time required: have you tried to succinctly describe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if you constantly get frustrated with newcomers, and another guy is always helpful and calm, the newcomers will gravitate to that other guy. If those newcomers advance, who are they more likely to help out with things? If they go to other companies, who are they likely to give a reference to? Getting frustrated is an emotional response, you don't have to get frustrated.
Eventually Mr. Always Helpful And Calm is going to get frustrated, too. It's about instilling the right mindset in newbies and not nurturing dependent work relationships. I like being Mr. Helpful, too, but I also like to see new devs persevere through all the frustration and bust through to the other side. Teach a man to fish, and all that.
I've had people snap at me occasionally (not because I was asking for help, more because they were assholes in the course of doing their regular job) and the only thing that happens is I avoided them and kept a written record of the times they'd been unpleasant in case we ever needed to talk to HR.
That being said, I don't think it's an eventuality that people will always get frustrated with other people. I've never had anybody inspire "rage" in me in work situations. Other than some times I was working on tv sets and people were screaming.