How to get people use forums and mailing lists [was Re: Career Help Urgent!]
Gabor Szabo
> > This is for my carrer. Please.........
>
> The problem is obvoiusly an artificial one, and sounds like homework,
> but if this is for your career then I guess it's actually a test set by
> a potential Perl employer, who want to check that you can have the skill
> to do this exercise before offering you a job.
Being able to go to the *right* forum and get help is a huge skil.
>
> So anybody who "helps" you by providing you with the answer is assisting
> you deceive the employer and get a job you are blatantly not qualified
> for. That's downright dishonest. Why on earth do you expect that
> somebody would want to "help" you in this way?
>
> Smylers
While I agree with you I would like to note that, unfortunately most
of the people
I see around would not know how to or would fear to ask a question on
a mailinig list.
This is a separate topic, but in my classes I noticed that a very
large proportion
of the students would not use any forum or mailing list to ask a question.
I guess this is somewhere in the 80-90% range of the students.
I am talking about engineers, QA people etc.
Usually I explain them about the forums and mailing lists but usually
I have a feeling
of lack of interest or lack of trust or similar.
What is your experience?
How do you introduce al these "tools" to get help?
Gabor
Danny R. Faught
> Usually I explain them about the forums and mailing lists but usually
> I have a feeling
> of lack of interest or lack of trust or similar.
This is a tough one. To these folks, broadcasting a question on a
mailing list is probably equivalent to walking to the front of a large
crowd uninvited and asking the question into a microphone.
I think the best option is for the students to adopt a mentor they can
talk to individually. The mentor can send questions to a mailing list
on their behalf when they can't answer the question, and perhaps help
the student eventually build up the confidence to do this themselves.
In practice, mentors are difficult to find, except for the instructor
herself. I've tried to provide paid mentoring services for a team as an
alternative to consulting but haven't yet sold anyone on the concept.
--
Danny R. Faught
Tejas Software Consulting
http://tejasconsulting.com/
Lutz Lange
most courses you will not have a chance to implement this strategy. I
remember one time where we faced a problem during a week of training,
and even after some time of digging i could not find an awnser. So i did
what i preached an posted two messages a forum and a mailing list. The
results were positive and the crowd was impressed. I really think they
will try it themselves in a similar situation.
Lutz
Brian D Foy
<d8a74af10605170733v27a...@mail.gmail.com>, Gabor
Szabo <sza...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a separate topic, but in my classes I noticed that a very
> large proportion
> of the students would not use any forum or mailing list to ask a question.
> I guess this is somewhere in the 80-90% range of the students.
> I am talking about engineers, QA people etc.
I've noted the same thing, and I really don't blame them. Most of the
people who frequent a forum are quite rude, elitist, and off-putting.
It's a shame to see newbies treated so harshly, and I don't blame them
from staying away.
You really can't blame some poor soul for seeing a mailing list named
"trai...@perl.org" and interpreting that as a place to get help from
Perl trainers. There isn't a lot of context in the name. Not one of the
responses that I saw actaully tried to help the person, even by simply
pointing them to the right place. Instead, the response put on the
usual grand show for the regulars.
As trainers, we know that people start at point A and it's our job to
figure out where they want to go (even if they don't know themselves)
then lead them there. We're certainly showing our inability to do that
if we can't get over ourselves and simply say "Perhaps the folks over
at learn.perl.org can help" and leave it at that.
Let's not be assholes to newbies.
Tad McClellan
On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 07:07:23PM +0200, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
> I also introduced them to comp.lang.perl.*
I present a triple-whammy:
Usenet as above, plus www.perlmonks.com and lists.perl.org.
--
Tad McClellan SGML consulting
ta...@augustmail.com Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas
Smylers
> You really can't blame some poor soul for seeing a mailing list named
> "trai...@perl.org" and interpreting that as a place to get help from
> Perl trainers.
It depends where they saw it, I suppose. This isn't a widely known
list, and the places I can think of which mention it state its purpose
reasonably clearly -- though I'll concede that for a non-native-English
speaker that could be harder to dermine.
> Not one of the responses that I saw actaully tried to help the person,
> even by simply pointing them to the right place.
I would've done if I could think of a right place. But I'm at a loss to
think whom somebody trying to cheat on a job application should
approach. A priest, perhaps?
If the question had been plausible then I'd've suggested PerlMonks; but
as it was phrased it would only get shot down there too, so there didn't
seem to be any point.
> Let's not be assholes to newbies.
Sure. But equally I don't want to encourage people to get Perl jobs
dishonestly -- especially if it means somebody who actually knows Perl
doesn't get the job.
Smylers
Peter Scott
> On 5/17/06, Smylers <Smy...@stripey.com> wrote:
>> So anybody who "helps" you by providing you with the answer is assisting
>> you deceive the employer and get a job you are blatantly not qualified
>> for. That's downright dishonest. Why on earth do you expect that
>> somebody would want to "help" you in this way?
>
> of the people
> I see around would not know how to or would fear to ask a question on
That is a valid independent point but in the case of the OP I would have
given the same response as Smylers no matter where it was posted. The
request was unethical in any context.
On the general point, I have written about this in both of my books.
Also, the beginners list is the perfect place for nervous posters to get
their feet wet.
--
Peter Scott
http://www.perlmedic.com/
http://www.perldebugged.com/