> FWIW, I have been there and done that too (been a programmer for nearly 50 > years) so I believe I'm qualified > to participate in the discussion about giving help. My concern is that on any > number of posts I read, I have > found some responders who prefer to give technique advice rather than deal > with the issue at hand. Yes, I > know that some folks need that, but often the tone of the response comes > across like I'm smarter than you. > If the responder had the sensitivity to phrase their words like "you may > already know this, but what you are > doing is no longer considered best practice in the industry" it would be a > lot easier to handle. But derailing > a thread into a discussion of what is a better practice rarely helps get the > issue solved in short term.
My advice to you - which you are of course free to take or leave - is that you read responses in the most positive way you can. You're asking for technical help, not sensitivity. And, in my own experience, a lot of technical questions boil down to the old joke "it hurts when I do this" - to which the right answer is usually, "don't do this". You can't expect people not to tell you that when you ask for free help, even if it may not be what you want to hear. Going back to Matt's original response, I suspect the only person he feels smarter than is his younger self - you know, the one that used all that generated code and had to maintain it and wished someone had told him what a mistake that would turn out to be. Lots of us wish we could go back in time and tell our younger selves not to do things that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, but turned out to be huge mistakes. Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software 1-202-527-9569 http://www.figleaf.com/ http://training.figleaf.com/ Fig Leaf Software is a Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) on GSA Schedule, and provides the highest caliber vendor-authorized instruction at our training centers, online, or onsite. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:358610 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
