Subject: RE: [hackers-il] New poll for hackers-il

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 17:07:09 +0200

I totally agree. Question is, why can't you do it without RTFMing him to death while flaming him to dust? Why not politely point him to where he can look it up, and if he is persistant, ignore him?

-- Arik

-----Original Message-----
From: Gilad Ben-Yossef [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 3:14 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [hackers-il] New poll for hackers-il

On Thu, 2002-05-09 at 16:02, Arik Baratz wrote:
> 
> 
> Gilad Ben-Yossef wrote:
> 
> > This is very true, but it is not the whole truth. By giving him the
> > answers he wanted I would have given him a fish. By insuling him and
> > making him go find the answers he wanted himself I would have taught him
> > to learn by himself and thus given something far more precious: a
> > fishing rod.
> >
> Why not just point him nicely to the place where they sell fishing rods, 
> and mention BTW that there are good fish yonder? All nicely? I don't 
> understand your need of violence.

I'm not a violent person generally. In fact, ever since the elective
brain surgery that implented the blessed electrodes in my frontal lobe I
am a good and productive citizen of society and practicly incapable of
violence aginst another human being. They make sure to test that the
surgery really worked before they let you go out of jail; they can't
bloody well release someone who murdered 79 people with an axe get
released best on a hunch you know...

The problem is that I was one of the early voulenteers and I think they
still haven't gotten of all of the bugs out of the early system they
installed in my brain. Most of the time all goes well, but once in a
while, when someone insults me, I feel the old rage rise in me again and
can taste the blood in my mouth and I can't help myself but.... better
stop here now. [ To self: Calm down. Breath deep. I am the cool and
placid center of universe. I am the cool and placid center of the
universe. I don't have to do what the voices in my head tell me. I don't
have to do what the voices in my head tell me... oh fuck it! where's my
axe?] Be afraid. Be VERY afraid... MUHAHHAHAHAHAHA ;-)

Seriously, now. I don't know of any way to get someone to learn how to
learn by giving them the answers. I have done the ONLY thing I know that
will *really* help him.

I must've had this happen to me a million times and I'm pretty sure the
same thing happen to many others who know how the chick gets out of the
bottle: some newbie comes to you asking some question because you have a
reputation of a 'guru'. You know the answer and so you politely explain.
This might happen a couple of times. Then one day he has yet another
question and again he comes to you for answer but this time you're not
sure of the answer. Maybe you know it but not sure or you really have no
idea. So you look it up in 'man' or google and tell him the answer,
maybe send him the link. This too happens a couple of times and after a
few questions you find out that you don't really give him any real
information yourself but simply look the information for him, because
you yourself don't know it either - what you do know is how to look.
 
Over the time, the newbie learns a lot of information, his question
become harder and harder and although he does not know it, he is not
really a newbie anymore. There is just one more lesson he needs to learn
from you - how to think for himself. There is no way in the world you
can teach him this by keep answering more questions. If you try to he
will simply continue to come back and ask you more question you don't
know the answer to anymore then him. If you want to really help him,
there is only one thing that you can do: stop answering his questions.
Claim you don't know, banish him away and tell him to look for the
answers himself. If he continues to ask, by all means, be rude!

What usually happens is that the poor newbie is completely at awe. How
can he solve the problem if you're not helping him? he needs the problem
solved! he has to finish that ptrogram and it doesn't work and you
completly refuse to answer his questions, what to do? he will be forced
tolook inwards for the answer. He will try and immitate what he saw you
do when you didn't know the answers to the questions he asked: go look
for the answer in the man pages, or the FAQs or google or even, heaven
forbirds! think for himself. And of course, once he does that, it will
work and he will gain confidence in his own ability to solve problems on
his own that will drive him to try and solve the next problem by himself
as well. After a couple of times he REALLY wont be a newbie anymore. He
has learned.

Now, the poor newbie had the real answer all along. He knew how to look
for himself, he just didn't knew he knew. Can you teach him to know that
he knows? of course not, what rubbish! all you can do is deliver a most
shocking blow to his head (metaphorically, of course ;-) and tell him to
stop this nonsense in the hope he will awaken. This is exactly what I
was aiming for.

Gilad.
 
-- 
Gilad Ben-Yossef <[email-masked]>
Code mangler, senior coffee drinker and VP SIGSEGV
Qlusters ltd.

"To err is human. To realy fsck up you need a computer. For
 those really large scale disastears, an SSI cluster is a must."

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