Baz, You've hit the nail on the head from both ends :) You should post this on your blog.
The result will be novices/newbies will just say screw it and move on to another more friendly community. The seasoned cakers will get frustrated and stop helping/mentoring. This is absolutely lose lose situation. The lessons I've learned over time is that no matter how good your product is, if no one can use it then your product fails. Just look at all of the database companies who have come and gone. My corporate friends are MS SQL server freaks who love it because MS made it easier to use/admin then it's father - Sybase. So look at where Sybase is today compared to MS. On Feb 11, 5:56 pm, Baz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Please excuse my babbling, but this is a problem we always have on this > mailing list (and others I've been a part of) and I'm not sure how we would > go about resolving issues such as these: > > 1. Novice asks a question > 2. Member flames novice for not reading/searching, etc. > 3. Member points to some previous post that pseudo helps > 4. Novice doesn't understand and asks again. > 5. Everyone gets mad, no one gets helped. > > Is there anyway we can avoid issues like these? I've been on both sides of > the fence and it's not fun on either one. Maybe with a few suggestions we > can avoid these in the future? (Please note these are NOT *directly* related > to this post) > > Novices: > > - Please do a lil' bit of footwork. That is one thing that annoys > members a lot. No one likes to help someone who doesn't want to help > themselves. > - Be polite with your questions. > - Give examples (links, paste bins) of what you've tried and why it > didn't work. > - Give proper errors or descriptions of problems. "It doesn't work" > doesn't mean much to anyone other than you. > - Trust members when they point you somewhere and take some time to > read through suggestions before reposting that it doesn't work. > > Members: > > - This is a big one. Please try to understand that CakePHP is very > intimidating to novices and sometimes people need *exact* examples. > Not "hunt through this post with 12 different replies and try to pluck out > something that may work for you" > - Along the lines of the above point, try to differentiate when you're > pointing to an *exact* solution and *reference *material. Then the > person knows what to expect. > - Try to understand that you guys live and breath this thing. Some > things just aren't clear to some people. It took me months before I could > figure out 1/4 of the stuff that the $options array does in the $form > helper > by reading through the api. > - Try to be patient. I know it comes easy to you, but people wouldn't > be asking if the answer was obvious. > - Try to understand a novice's question first before pointing them to > some general solution. > - Sometimes an explanation is worth a lot more than a link to an old > thread/post/etc. Code isn't as clear to others as it is to you. > - Try not to look down on the ignorant. You, of all people, should > appreciate the complexities of CakePHP. > > I must say that I've been guilty of all of the above on some occasion or the > other. > > Before you ask/answer a question, try to look at it from the other person's > perspective before you hit the send button. > > Question: Why don't we have a rules and regulations text (one the homepage > of the group perhaps?) that states policies on question asking such as > researching, reading, duplicates, etc? > > Just my 2 cents > -- > Baz L > Web Development 2.0http://WebDevelopment2.com/ > > On Feb 11, 2008 4:23 PM, sbeam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > look, thanks for the finger wagging and challenge to a sword fight but > > I'll pass. I did find the thread and the code you linked to a long > > time ago. I rejected it because the comments mentioned MPTT, which > > again I don't need, plus it is totally incomprehensible to me. I tried > > the grigri stuff too but it didn't quite work. > > > In any case I did also find this which is almost working and is more > > clear: > >http://bin.cakephp.org/saved/21838 > > > I am new to Cake and expected this to be in Bakery, so when it wasn't > > I thought I would ask if there was any progress I was missing, besides > > these heaps of code in pastebin which I didn't understand. Sorry if my > > post disturbed you. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cake PHP" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cake-php?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
