Are on-line technical forums breeding lazy developers?
As most of my readers will know, I spend a considerable amount of time trying to help other developers with technical issues in various on-line forums. I don’t do this because I am seeking some sort of kudos, or recognition, but because when I was starting out as developer back in the late 1980s I received a lot of help from other people. Most of them I had never heard of (but I have been very fortunate in that many of these ‘names’ I now count among my friends) but they were unfailingly helpful and always ready to offer advice, code and the benefit of their own experiences. Now I try to repay them by helping others who are just starting out, or who have hit a block of some sort.
However, I have noticed a rather, disturbing (at least to me), trend recently. It seems that more and more developers are using the on-line forums as the FIRST place they go for solutions rather than, as has always been the case, the last resort – when you have exhausted all other resources. Here is a question I saw posted today (yes, this is real, and un-edited):
I would like to know what is wrong with the following statements:
DIMENSION cust[2]
cust[1] = "aaa"
cust[2] = "bbb"
CREATE CURSOR CUSTOMERS FROM ARRAY cust
I get the error "No fields found to process".
I simply cannot imagine why anyone would post a question like this because the answer is immediately obvious from the help file topic for CREATE CURSOR where is states explicitly that:
FROM ARRAY ArrayName
Specifies the name of an existing array whose contents are the name, type, precision, and scale for each field in the temporary table. You can use the FROM ARRAY clause instead of specifying individual fields. For the proper format of the contents of the array, see AFIELDS( ) Function.
Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that a developer, on getting an error like "No fields Found to Process" would jump into the Help File to check that the code is correct? If so, even a cursory check for syntax would have revealed that the array was just plain wrong! A moment’s thought, and a quick search for “From Array” would have revealed a number of options including "APPEND FROM ARRAY" which obviously will do exactly what was wanted, but also "REPLACE FROM ARRAY" and "COPY TO ARRAY” which might have repaid a little further investigation and would have solved the problem in about 30 seconds.
Instead, the person posted a question, received an answer in 15 minutes, re-posted the “correct” question which was “how can I append data from an array to a cursor” and (presumably) waited another quarter hour for an answer to that one!
Or how about this one:
How to use ReportListener with Top-Level form and what Enginerbehaviour and Reportbehaviour shuould set. Please Help
What sort of question is that? This is on a par with “How do I write an application in VFP?” or “How long is a piece of string?”
Maybe it’s me, but I get the feeling that people are getting lazy and expect, nay, even DEMAND, that others spoon-feed them answers to questions that really the questioner could have answered themselves with minimal effort and research. I actually replied to the person who asked the ReportListener question as follows:
Pardon me for jumping in here, but I think you are being very unreasonable. The first thing you need to do is to make some effort to do your own research, you can't expect others to do it all for you!
Do you have the VFP Help file? If so, try looking in the help file under: "ReportListener Base Foundation Class". There is an example at the bottom of the page!
On the other hand, maybe just don't like the VFP Help files. So how about going to the VFP Website and looking at the "Technical Article" section? Maybe you could download Cathy Poutney's articles (which includes a load of examples):
What's New in the Visual FoxPro 9.0 Report Writer and Visual FoxPro 9.0 Report Writer In Action
There is also Doug Hennig's article on "Hyperlink Your Reports" and there are other useful links there too.
On the other hand, maybe you don't like the Microsoft Web site either. So how about going to www.google.com and entering "VFP Report Listener Examples" - would you like me to list all 12,200 hits on that one for you (or can you manage to look at those by yourself)?
If you don't like that either, what about this forum's archives? There must be dozens of threads here discussing ReportListeners and absolutely chock full of good advice.
Look, if you have a specific question, we are only too glad to help, but asking others to do your research work for you is unfair and unreasonable. Go and do some research and when you find something you can't understand, or can't cope with, come and ask by all means. But what you are doing now is just abusing the goodwill of the members of this forum.
And the last paragraph says it all – it seems to me that this is a growing trend among some developers who seem to believe that there is no point in doing any research, or investigation, because you can just post the question on-line and someone else will do it for you.
Now, I know that I don’t have to answer these sorts of questions, but the thing is that I really believe that the only way to become a better developer is to really understand what is going on and how your development tool works. But I don’t think you can get that sort of understanding without putting SOME effort of your own into acquiring it.
So the point of this article is two-fold.
[1] Am I being over-sensitive about this? Or are people really just getting lazier because it’s so easy to get answers on-line?
[2] How can we (and maybe even SHOULD we?) encourage people, especially neophytes, to appreciate the value of doing their own research before posting questions on line?