Re: Help getting started with Danny Boy

[Peter Wright]

On 04/05 09:38:29, James E. Bailey wrote:
> Am 04.05.2008 um 05:59 schrieb Paul Scott:
[ snip plasmacarwash's questions ]
>> Have you read the tutorial?
>>
>> We can help you better if you show us what you have tried.
>
> I'm sorry, if this is rude, but this is a real pet peeve of mine.
> Rather than saying, "Oh, okay, try in section 1.2.1.1 of the
> lilypond  documentation or section 2 of the learning manual" people,
> especially in GNU or open software, simply reply with "RTFM".
[ snip ]
> An answer like, "have you read the tutorial" implies that the person
> questioning hasn't read the tutorial.

It could be implying that, yes, but it could also be a reminder, a
gentle hint, or even a genuine question. Or perhaps all four :).

One of the things I usually try to do *first* when trying to help
someone on an IT-related problem is to work out how much they know.
It wastes everybody's time if you give a short answer that can't be
understood by the original questioner - and similarly if you give a
very-carefully-explained answer to someone who didn't need it.

I think Paul's second sentence ("We can help you better if you show us
what you have tried.") clarifies that that was the point of the
question in this case.

By the way - in case you haven't read it before, this:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

...is worth a read. Or sometimes a re-read. :)

> If you read his questions, you can see that he's probably started
> reading the manual, but hasn't actually typeset any music. It looks
> to  me like he's just wondering how things work.

That's part of the background that information that questions like
"have you read the tutorial?" are intended to draw out. :)

(By the way, I agree that the answer you got to _your_ question was
probably a tad curt.)

> The point is, how to ask a question really helped me, and how to
> answer a question was even more helpful. I learned a little insight
> into the people who were probably answering my questions.

The most important insight is that people are _usually_ willing to
help if they can (aside from the occasional sociopath), so it's a good
idea to make it easy as possible for them to help.

Pete.
-- 
"Expressions including c (call-with-current-continuation) function
calls tend to be hopelessly difficult to track down. This was, of
course, the reason for including it in the language in the first place."
    -- Unlambda: Your Functional Programming Language Nightmares Come True