1
2 votes
Maybe time to step away - Teach a man to fish
Posted by lespauled,
01 August 2013
·
2120 views
step away
I think the time has come for me to start stepping away from codecall. Although I truly enjoy helping people that put in the effort to help themselves, that paradigm has seemed to be lost in the younger developers of the forum.
When I first started here it was an absolute pleasure to help people that put in the time and effort to fix the problem themselves but just hit a wall and were unable to get the final part of their puzzle. Over the past six months, the individual effort has been lost, and the "feed me the answer" people have overtaken this forum.
Normally I would respond with a means to getting your answer from a website like MSDN or other programming sites. I would also tell the person that being a programmer means hunting down the answers you require by yourself and not constantly and incessantly posting questions for every last little bit of your project. You have to put in the effort yourself and if you get stuck that's when you post the question. It's like the "teach a man to fish" scenario.
I have been a programmer for far too many years. I am the manager of the programming department. Every one of my program is becomes family, the reason being that I find programmers of similar ilk. Every programmer on my team has the inner drive to find the answers themselves. They ask questions when they are truly stuck. Every one of them is self-sufficient. That is what's needed to be a true team player. Some programmers are stronger than others in certain areas of programming and other programmers are strongest in a different area. Each feeds off of each other and the whole team becomes stronger and tightly knit.
I fully believe that not everyone who wants to be a programmer has the ability or the drive to be a programmer. It's similar to not everyone who loves playing baseball can be a major-league baseball player. The drive that I speak of is missing and 99% of the younger developers. It seems like they want everything handed to them, "give me the answers." Unfortunately that paradigm doesn't work. When you spend no time looking for the answer yourself and ask someone to hand you the answer, you are less likely to retain that knowledge. When you work for an answer but are stuck and then ask the question, and someone answers it you will retain that knowledge.
So handing answers to these new programmers actually handicaps them. I have always been a person who says help the person help themselves, especially in programming. But unfortunately the new programmers seem to not want to help themselves they just want the answers to their current problem immediately. I find myself torn between just giving them the answer and not helping them, or not answering the question at all. Part of me says why not just give them the answers? What do I care if they become good program is or not. If they don't become good programs me and my family will never be out of a job.
Since it is against everything that I stand for, I believe I have to step away and not hand feed answers to these new programmers.
There is also this line in the code of conduct, that I disagree with.
I disagree with this based on a post I made to a person who was asking about a very narrow topic in programming. I pointed him to a website that specialized in that topic. He cried that I shouldn't be pointing people away from CodeCall. I responded that of course you can post your question here, and hope that someone has the expertise in that very narrow field, or you would post on the board specializing in that field and possibly get an answer in minutes. It's a no-brainer to me, but obviously our brains don't interpret things the same way.
And finally, and possibly the last straw, is the belligerent demeanor of new programmers when you actually try to help them. They almost demand the answer, instead of you helping them to find the answer. There is one member that has over 450 posts. Every single one of them is either a question, his reassurance that he knows how to do something, or a demand for the answer. Why would anyone help this person. He's a taker and has never given an answer, nor has said thank you for any answers given to him. I find my blood pressure raise when I see some of his questions. There is zero effort on his part. Zero.
There are some really great people here. Some of which have cut back on their participation, probably due to real life getting in the way. They were the reason that I continued to come back multiple times daily.
I will still check in from time to time, but I will not be as active a member as I have been in the past.
When I first started here it was an absolute pleasure to help people that put in the time and effort to fix the problem themselves but just hit a wall and were unable to get the final part of their puzzle. Over the past six months, the individual effort has been lost, and the "feed me the answer" people have overtaken this forum.
Normally I would respond with a means to getting your answer from a website like MSDN or other programming sites. I would also tell the person that being a programmer means hunting down the answers you require by yourself and not constantly and incessantly posting questions for every last little bit of your project. You have to put in the effort yourself and if you get stuck that's when you post the question. It's like the "teach a man to fish" scenario.
I have been a programmer for far too many years. I am the manager of the programming department. Every one of my program is becomes family, the reason being that I find programmers of similar ilk. Every programmer on my team has the inner drive to find the answers themselves. They ask questions when they are truly stuck. Every one of them is self-sufficient. That is what's needed to be a true team player. Some programmers are stronger than others in certain areas of programming and other programmers are strongest in a different area. Each feeds off of each other and the whole team becomes stronger and tightly knit.
I fully believe that not everyone who wants to be a programmer has the ability or the drive to be a programmer. It's similar to not everyone who loves playing baseball can be a major-league baseball player. The drive that I speak of is missing and 99% of the younger developers. It seems like they want everything handed to them, "give me the answers." Unfortunately that paradigm doesn't work. When you spend no time looking for the answer yourself and ask someone to hand you the answer, you are less likely to retain that knowledge. When you work for an answer but are stuck and then ask the question, and someone answers it you will retain that knowledge.
So handing answers to these new programmers actually handicaps them. I have always been a person who says help the person help themselves, especially in programming. But unfortunately the new programmers seem to not want to help themselves they just want the answers to their current problem immediately. I find myself torn between just giving them the answer and not helping them, or not answering the question at all. Part of me says why not just give them the answers? What do I care if they become good program is or not. If they don't become good programs me and my family will never be out of a job.
Since it is against everything that I stand for, I believe I have to step away and not hand feed answers to these new programmers.
There is also this line in the code of conduct, that I disagree with.
A conduct reminder for everyone
...
Therefore, directing them to Google, or telling them to read tutorials is unhelpful unless you can point them specifically to what they need to learn about.
...
I disagree with this based on a post I made to a person who was asking about a very narrow topic in programming. I pointed him to a website that specialized in that topic. He cried that I shouldn't be pointing people away from CodeCall. I responded that of course you can post your question here, and hope that someone has the expertise in that very narrow field, or you would post on the board specializing in that field and possibly get an answer in minutes. It's a no-brainer to me, but obviously our brains don't interpret things the same way.
And finally, and possibly the last straw, is the belligerent demeanor of new programmers when you actually try to help them. They almost demand the answer, instead of you helping them to find the answer. There is one member that has over 450 posts. Every single one of them is either a question, his reassurance that he knows how to do something, or a demand for the answer. Why would anyone help this person. He's a taker and has never given an answer, nor has said thank you for any answers given to him. I find my blood pressure raise when I see some of his questions. There is zero effort on his part. Zero.
There are some really great people here. Some of which have cut back on their participation, probably due to real life getting in the way. They were the reason that I continued to come back multiple times daily.
I will still check in from time to time, but I will not be as active a member as I have been in the past.
It also showed new users which members are the highest rated for that month at helping others.
I have to say, I almost completly agree with you.
This is a reason why when I have less free time, codecall is one of the first thing that I leave.
I said I almost completly agree with you, the only point that I'm not 100% with you is the external link.
It may help the programmer, but if in 6months from now, someone else have the same problem and find your post, maybe the external link have changed, or the website doesn't exist anymore.
So a external link is great, but a small text with the link is a lot better.
... And I'm pretty sure I know the user you are talking about, there is even some that are always contacting me in private for answer :/
Me too, it make me mad to see thing like that.