I agree with everything you have said. I just don't think there is a good
way to get people from asking these types of questions, without someone
sitting there reading every message and filtering them according to topic.
We are stuck with a high-volume list where lots of newbies come to ask us
questions. If PHP wasn't so damn good and so popular we wouldn't be having
this conversation.
K E I T H V A N C E
Software Engineer
n-Link Corporation
On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, Jason Lotito wrote:
> > How many times are people going to complain about no-brainer questions
> > being posted to the list. The fact of the matter is people are going to
> > post things on the list without reading the manual or the FAQ. It goes
> > with the territory. It annoys me too, but there is no good solution for
> > the problem. There is the fact that a lot of people are new and don't
> > really know where to go to find answers. Even if they go to the web site,
> > they still may not know that they need to be looking for information on
> > naming variables with variables or that fopen opens a file or whatever.
> >
> > K E I T H V A N C E
>
> I think the argument has less to do with people asking questions about PHP
> and how it works, and more about people asking basica programming questions
> without knowing it. Fundamental programming concepts, like the scope of a
> variable, passing by reference or by value, or even looping are things
> newbie's simply do not understand. Why? Because they don't know they need
> to learn the concepts and theories of programming before learning to
> program. It sounds odd, but that is the way it is.
>
> People asking questions about how a loop works are not usually asking how a
> PHP loop works. The same for arrays. They are really saying: "This is the
> first real programming language I am out to learn, and I don't understand
> the concept behind a For/Next Loop." This isn't a bad thing, heck, we were
> all newbies at one point, and in a sense, we are all newbies at something.
>
> I think the argument is that their are many people who don't want to learn
> how and why a For/Next Loop works, but instead simply want someone to fix
> the problem for them. That isn't programming. Programming (and yes, I
> know, PHP is technically a scripting language, but lets not jump that fence
> as well) is about trial and error, logic, and creativity, but most
> importantly, problem solving. Most of the newbies get into PHP expecting a
> tutorial on every topic. If they can't find a tutorial on how to print out
> 5 numbers, they expect someone to show them how to do it. They don't try
> and solve the problem themselves, and that is a problem. I don't mind
> assisting where I can, however, I don't like rewriting a script for someone
> when they don't even take the time to try and learn the fundamentals. Most
> newbies I have met fall into two categories. The majority start out wanting
> to learn PHP because someone said it was easy to learn, which it is, from a
> programmers point of view. However, when in the second week of learning
> their first programming language they can't program that PHP Database
> Content Management System with Instant Yahoo News Retrival complete with
> User Database, Forums, and Real Time Foo, they start getting upset and say
> that PHP sucks. Those same people may also complain because they can't find
> a tutorial on how to create a Forum Database, and all they can find are
> tutorials on the basics of Database Design.
>
> I think this is the real problem. Try to run before they have learned to
> crawl and walk.
>
> Jason Lotito
> www.NewbieNetwork.net
> Where those who can, teach;
> and those who can, learn.
>
>
>
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