Re: bash scripting
On Mon, Jul 26, 1999 at 05:24:11PM +0930, Michael Talbot-Wilson wrote:
> > I love how people insist on firing off this remark. It is sooo
> > much more explanatory than pasting in a piece of the manpage then
> > breaking it down to a newbies' terms. Then _calmly_ telling them
> > (OFF THE LIST) that they should RTFM without using the RTFM
> > flame. I just think we spend way too much time falming, and not
> > enough time correcting these people who neglect to read
> People start to say it after they have politely answered the same
> question approximately 500 times.
That's understandable, but I still discourage it.
> There are about 10,000 new newbies coming onto the Internet every day
This is precisely the point. While it may be your 500th time to hear
an easy, well-documented problem, it's not fair that when a frustrated
newbie finally musters the courage to send email to several thousand
people, he gets slapped in the face with RTFM.
If it's a cronic offender, then fine, nail 'em, but it's a pretty
rough welcome for those who may not know any better. Hell, early in
my linux career, I was getting slapped with "RTFM" and didn't even
know what it stood for -- that was useful!
> all with the same cluelessness and the same questions. Every day, every
> week, every month, every year.
(I say this politely, really) Those who cannot tolerate this should
probably not respond. There are others (perhaps those, like me, fresh
out of newbie-school themselves) who will be happy to gently steer
newbies rather than slam them in the right direction.
> The manual should only need to be written once, not thousands of times.
> The person who did write it is usually best qualified to do so. You seem
> to think anyone else in the world can express the matter better than the
> original author. If you were to read the bash manual page yourself you
> would see that it is a brilliant piece of writing that no-one is going to
> better.
I agree, but it can be overwhelming. I was a solid linux user for
a long time before I made it through that man page. (forgive the
physics anology) You shouldn't hand a high school kid Jackson
(graduate electricity and magnetism) when he asks how electromagnets
work. It's just too much.
> The kindest thing you can do for anyone in difficulty is to persuade him
> that he really does need to study the manual.
Agreed, the only way he'll ever make it though the manual is by trying
_many_ times.
> He shouldn't even be posting questions until he has looked into the matter
> himself and drawn a blank on all fronts.
I typically say you should ask for help after scratching your head
(i.e. NO ideas) for 1/2 hour.
> So any question answered in the manual deserves either to be totally
> ignored or to be flamed. It does NOT deserve an answer.
Now that's productive. I would think that even the most cynical
oldbie would at least point them to the manual in case they don't know
where it is.
> It is bad netiquette to paste part of the man page, because it creates
> traffic delivering something that the recipient already has. And no-one
> owes the newbie that kind of favor. He can cut from the man page
> himself. He has it, and he can do it. The rest of us are busy people
> and life is running out. Help where it is needed is one thing. A crutch
> for the lazy, or foolishly trying to do for someone else what he must
> surely do for himself, merely because he sent a message out into the wide
> world, is quite another.
I agree with this entire statement. I just think that there is some
middle ground between help for the desperate and a crutch for the
lazy. The origin of this thread is the perfect example. The word
"sleep" doesn't even appear in the bash man page. man sleep will
work, but you first need to know you're looking for sleep. catch 22.
Appropriate action? Ask.
-Michael
--
Michael Stenner Office Phone: 919-660-2513
Duke University, Dept. of Physics mstenner@phy.duke.edu
Box 90305, Durham N.C. 27708-0305
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