RE: Asking questions (was: Triggers)

It is amazing the information that is provided using the 'SEARCH-ALL' of the archives here @ Midrange.com.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, David!

Example.....

To see how many times the word "F##K' has been used here and how.

I saw a total of 19 entries.

Most of them were duplicates within a particular thread.

What was found...

" What .. the .. f##k"
"royal f##k up"
" what happens when you f##k something up"
"f##k up royally"
"Dennis Miller's permission to say F##K"

Note... the difference with the use of the word this time.

" F##k the 2 of you"

Not the desired status quo here!

But more than the above... I am curious about your friend being slammed here for asking about "new features" of the OS.

Would you please provide a link to their post.

I suggest using "SEARCH-ALL" on the archives trying to locate that information.


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Hoteltravelfundotcom
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2014 11:43 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Asking questions (was: Triggers)

For those who've been away from the machine for some years, this is harder task. what is so wrong about general discussion? like on many forums, you have various forums, some called like for newbies etc.
others for more advanced. No where have i ever seen people get slammed like here. I know a dev who once asked here, what were the new features you can talk about a new release of the os.
he got slammed here and never came back. Is that the desired status quo?


On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 3:31 PM, Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

...and really enjoy all the information that is passed between
users,

however I have been reluctant to post anything in fear of being blasted.

That makes me sad. The purpose of this list is to share knowledge.
There are practical limitations as to how much knowledge can be shared
via email; we can't really /teach/ someone from the ground up. The
time investment would be enormous on both sides. Much etiquette on
'How to ask questions' springs from that fact.

It's something of a paradox that the hardest question to answer is the
easiest to ask. An example: 'What is the best way to read a record?'
Read? CL? Rexx? RPG/36, RPG III, RPG/400, ILE RPG? Cobol, Fortran,
C, SQL? Java via JDBC, Excel via ODBC, Crystal Reports? Best?
Fastest to execute once, fewest lines of code, easiest to maintain,
fastest to execute for a million rows?

The easiest question for me to answer involves enough code and sample
data that I can recreate the situation on my machine. That's usually
the hardest thing for the asker to do, because it means he has to
extract out the bits that aren't working, set up a dummy table and
then cut and paste the lot into a question (although code.midrange.com
can help with that; post your code there, then paste the link here).

So help us to help you. If you have a question, show your code and
sample data that makes it fail. It sounds weird, but the more
specific your question, the faster you'll get an answer. I've been on
this list since the BBS days, and honestly can't recall complaints
that an asker gave too much detail in her question. The list is far
more likely to complain that it takes forever to tease out every last
morsel of information needed to understand the problem.

I've taken too much of your time as it is. I hope this helps to
encourage you to ask - or answer - some questions. The community
draws its strength from those who actively participate.
--buck
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