Re: Dogs, trolls, and neighborly free/open source

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On Thu, 5 Aug 2010, Les Mikesell wrote:

> On 8/5/2010 12:25 PM, Paul Heinlein wrote:
>> On Thu, 5 Aug 2010, Les Mikesell wrote:
>>
>>> The part I have trouble understanding is that while it seems 
>>> perfectly acceptable to be dumb about most coding languages and 
>>> ask for a canned routine to do something you are too lazy to write 
>>> for yourself, the same does not apply to shell commands even 
>>> though there is not much inherent difference in complexity.  Is it 
>>> just that coders are more willing to share their work than 
>>> administrators even in cases where it is equally reusable?
>>
>> The major difference I've seen in that sort of request is that 
>> coders tend to ask for help with a small subset of the overall task 
>> (a routine) while erstwhile admins tend to ask for help with the 
>> totality of the task.
>>
>> When someone says, "I'm writing a shell script, and hereabouts I 
>> need $TOOL to do such and such," a good answer is usually 
>> forthcoming.
>>
>> When someone says, "Tell me how to script this $PROJECT," the 
>> commmunity usually points the OP off to Google/Manual.
>
> I don't think it is the nature of the requests that are different 
> (although coders perhaps have to know more to even ask a reasonable 
> question), just the responses.  Coders seem much more likely to try 
> to make their work available to others that haven't even asked while 
> administrators pretend that everything they do is unique and not 
> reusable - or they don't want it to be.

I guess I'm not convinced (though I'm really not trying to be stubborn 
or curmudgeonly :-).

I'll grant that in both cases the request is essentially the same: 
"Help me do this." When someone's "this" is their whole scripting 
project rather than a particular section of it, however, I guess I 
just roll my inner eye and delete the message. When someone has 
narrowed the question to a technological particular, I'm much more 
willing to assist.

I realize the only difference is the scope of the question. Am I more 
inclined to treat the latter questioner as a willing learner and the 
former like a layabout? Is it simply that the larger the scope, the 
more reluctant I am to understand and contribute? Hmm. Must navel-gaze 
on this...

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein@xxxxxxxxxx <> http://www.madboa.com/
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