Re: Newbie Questions -- MIDRANGE-L

Buck,

In a message dated 98-10-09 13:05:03 EDT, you write:

>   I struggled with the same questions before I responded to our new family 
>  member.  On the one hand, he's clearly a student, probably early in his 
>  curriculum and probably working ahead of the teacher.  So for him, the 
>  questions he's asking are hard (PC programmers rarely wrap their 
>  executable code in a .BAT file...)  Basically, I settled on treating his 
>  questions much as I treat my own kids' homework: point to the place in the 
>  book and provide enough info to "get the idea."  I think that doing the 
>  work for him is doing him a grave disservice.

And a fine path you chose, IMO.  At least you helped rather than ridicule.

>  On the other hand, it can be hard to devote time to helping someone who's 
>  brand new simply because you know that there are literally hundreds of 
>  questions that *will* come up tomorrow...  If you answer these, does that 
>  make you committed to answering them all?

Agreed.  But you can always ignore future questions.

>  Finally, I wonder why I feel like I should let a student "work it out for 
>  himself" and freely give code samples to those in business?
>  
>  Interesting moral questions, Dean.

Indeed.  Letting them work it out is probably the best course; however, not
knowing what resources they have available to them other than the list makes
it a difficult decision.  A "gung-ho" newbie working in most of the shops that
I've been in would be discouraged almost instantly.  A "team" of people that
havn't learned anything new since they bought their first 3/x system back in
the early 80's?  Whoa, _THERE'S_ a hotbed of intellectual and idealogical
exchange ;-(.  THAT, more than anything, is why I think this list should help
_EVERYONE_.

>  In any event, *I* personally didn't take the tone of some of the responses 
>  too badly; being a list member for over a year has taught me that almost 
>  everybody here is a helpful sort; else why would they bother to answer? 
>   Anybody can have a bad day, and I basically looked at the "rude" 
>  responses in that light.  After all, they *did* give a bunch of answers 
>  first...

Perhaps, and perhaps some of the responses appeared to me to be terse due to
time restraints on the part of their authors.  The problem was that *I* had a
bad day, and the usual warmth of this list that usually offsets that seemed to
be lacking.  I still think that "the only stupid question is the one that you
were too proud to ask"...

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-Mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"Those who agree with us may not be right, but we admire their astuteness." --
Cullen Hightower
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