Re: Thoughts on RTFM

[Kirk Strauser <kirk@strauser.com>]

At 2001-11-30T15:52:18Z, Viktor Rosenfeld <rosenfel@informatik.hu-berlin.de> writes:

> Unfortunately, I also had my fair share of people, who just wanted total
> step-by-step instructions, didn't care for the information I gave them,
> asked follow-up question, that showed, that they haven't put a single
> thought into the problem themselves and generally just wanted me to come
> over and solve the problem for them.  This attitude is frustrating and if
> it hits me too often, I invoke the RTFM.

I concur.  I'm really not a good instructor; I have a hard time taking n
streams of information and verbally spewing out 1 coherent list of
instructions to execute a task.  However, I'll do my best to help someone
learn something, *if* they can be bothered to try to participate in the
experience.  I steadfastly refuse to answer question after question when the
answers should be readily apparent to someone who tried to understand the
original answer.

  User: "How do I see all of the JPEGs in a directory?"
  Me: "The ls command gives you a list of files.  Type ls *.jpg ."
  User, 10 minutes later: "How do I see all of the GIFs in a directory?"
  Me: "man ls"

I realize that I've been blessed with the ability to absorb huge amounts of
documentation, and that not everyone shares this trait.  Still, I'm a lot
more likely to give assistance if the person asking will at least *try* to
learn for themselves.
-- 
Kirk Strauser