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Re: Is this what's holding back Linux and OSS in general?

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Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles (Post 177684)

I don't particularly care what the question is about, I'm worried about the attitude. If somebody comes in oozing entitlement and unpleasantness, then they're going to have trouble but on the other hand, if somebody comes in with a good attitude, asks nicely and indicates that they've at least put forth a little effort into trying to work out their issue then I'm more than happy to help.

That is reasonable enough, but how do you tell how much effort they have put in, and what is the right amount of effort to put in?

I will always put in effort trying to find out what I want but half the time in a new field that you are unfamiliar, the problem is knowing what you need to search for.
If you don't know what the problem is, how do you know how simple the question you are asking is?

Re: Is this what's holding back Linux and OSS in general?

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Originally Posted by tabletrat (Post 177710)

That is reasonable enough, but how do you tell how much effort they have put in . . .

"I searched, but I don't think I used the right terms . . .", or "I searched and didn't see anything . . .", or "I couldn't find anything on this . . ."

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Originally Posted by tabletrat (Post 177710)

. . . and what is the right amount of effort to put in?

More than just clicking New Topic.

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Originally Posted by tabletrat (Post 177710)

I will always put in effort trying to find out what I want but half the time in a new field that you are unfamiliar, the problem is knowing what you need to search for.

Try. That's all I ask. Try to help yourself first. If you fail, fine, but invest at least a little effort into it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tabletrat (Post 177710)

If you don't know what the problem is, how do you know how simple the question you are asking is?

We already established that the simplicity of the answer is irrelevant. . . .

Re: Is this what's holding back Linux and OSS in general?

Sorry about the space consumed by the following quote-train, but I think it's the best way to make this clear.

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Originally Posted by tabletrat (Post 177215)

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Originally Posted by Navi (Post 177203)

If it means not having to answer the same basic questions over and over again, then I'm all for keeping Linux a niche market.

So what happens when it is the questions you are asking that people don't want to answer?

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Originally Posted by Benson (Post 177220)

You go figure out the answer on your own.

As long as it is constrained to people who actually want technical competence, they will see many troubles not only as something they need fixed, but as something they don't know how to fix yet, and want the knowledge worse than the fix. So they'll research (and/or just think, sometimes) before posting, because that will go farther to their goal. When all you want is a quick fix, it's often easiest to ask first, as someone will probably give you the answer, or at least point you much more specifically toward the answer. You just won't get a good understanding of the system that allows you to fix the next problem yourself.

So there won't be near as many questions , and the situation where nobody knows the answer becomes more prevalent than that where everyone's tired of telling the answer.

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Originally Posted by tabletrat (Post 177246)

Excelent. Like the anti-science. Standing on the toes of giants.
Instead of progressing technology, everyone spends time doing the same thing over and over again out of fear of looking like a newbie.

Which is I guess an reasonable description of how linux appears from the outside.

However, regardless to 'ego linux' distributions, it would be nice to have some sort of distribution that was good for normal people so they don't have to keep funding microsofts desire to copyright everything in computer technology. I suppose that is where ubuntus market is and it has made very impressive progress so far, to the point that there is a linux that is close to something those normal people can use.

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Originally Posted by tabletrat (Post 177339)

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Originally Posted by Benson (Post 177249)

Everyone looks stuff up in the manual, out of fear of looking like a newbie? Well, I don't think that's why, but any reason's a good reason.

Sorry - I searched the whole thread, and didn't see any reference to a manual. What are you refering to? In fact, what are these manuals. One thing that I am always impressed with is how poor the documentation is for any of the linux stuff. I know why - developers hate doing documentation. I am a developer, and I hate it. I just have to do it at work.

Well, as I said above, if nobody wants to answer your question, you figure it out yourself; I guess my way of figuring stuff out (of the sort nobody wants to answer) is manual-intensive. Maybe I shouldn't assume other people solve their problems the same way.

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OK, there is the man pages, which work fine if you know what tool is necessary to do the job you want to do, but if you don't then you have a few hours of googling trying to find something.

A few minutes of googling, if you are able to abstract a layer above where your purpose is, to what generic task is done by the tool you seek. You can also use apropos...

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I did a google tonight. I was trying to find out why I couldn't install the mind manage app somewhere here. I couldn't find some python library. First thing I found was something on the python page telling me I had to have the tablet in R&D mode, which I didn't really want (or feel necessary). So I did a bit more searching. Then after about 4 different searches, I found the phrase I needed for the library I was looking for, as I assumed it was some abstract repository I had to add (and obviously, I didn't want to look like a ****** for asking as I should know all the repositories used everywhere),

Maybe you feel that way, but I think a lot of very intelligent people don't know every detail of everything in their field, so I wouldn't expect you to know that. The best thing is not to know, but to know where to look. For repos, that's www.gronmayer.com/it/.

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so I followed the link. It was somewhere on here asking where to get the library from which was answered by someone providing a link to google. I searched the whole of ITT, and that was the only reference, so I don't know what they were going on about.

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I think it has more to do with wanting to learn, and recognizing that a man page is a much better way of understanding grep than a single regex someone responds to your specific "help me please" question with.

a man page is an awful way of learning a how to do regex, and that goes on the basis that you know what a regex is and what the name of the tool that does it is. If you don't know what the tool is called, or about regex expressions, how are you supposed to know?

Using apropos, mainly. But I will take the moment to pronounce myself an anomaly; Briand suggested a book, and I spoke to my brother over the weekend, and he thinks the grep man page is a great reference (indisputable) but a lousy way to get started. I dunno, it made sense to me; maybe I was a regex guru in a former life... in any case, regex was apparently a bad example.

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(And what's this mean: "Instead of progressing technology"? Do you think that the people who ask dumb questions instead of Ring TFM are likely to bring about any technological progress? Or am I misunderstanding your point?)

If there was a FM then that would be a valid point.

There is; that's what the man pages are. But if the following is your primary argument, I can't see what the level of documentation has to do with it, anyway.

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But anway, they do progress technology. They buy the products enabling the products to be produced. If it was just linux enthusiasts, there wouldn't be enough to make it worth doing.

Doesn't hold water; ever hear of Debian and slackware? How about Redhat, and these days Novell? The former are largely for enthusiasts; the latter largely for business applications. None of them are targeted at the same lowest-common-denominator market as Ubuntu. They were here first, and show no signs of dying.

Re: Is this what's holding back Linux and OSS in general?

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Originally Posted by Benson (Post 177754)

Linux for the unwashed masses will ultimately be beneficial to everyone involved in Linux. Ubuntu is about making money with corporate support by first becoming a household name at home. So no need for disdain and elitism.

Re: Is this what's holding back Linux and OSS in general?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benson (in part)

Briand suggested a book

Not just a book. The O'Reilly book on the subject. ...and (IMO), that holds true for any subject on which O'Reilly publishes a book, in my experience.

In this case, it'd be this specific book from their catalog.

Re: Is this what's holding back Linux and OSS in general?

heh, i think i should grab some of those ;)

Re: Is this what's holding back Linux and OSS in general?

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Originally Posted by ysss (Post 177236)

So basically it's best to continue just as a 'hobby' thing..?

Nothing 'hobby' about it, the Linux phenomenon has created large new possibilities in industry, companies have grabbed the opportunity to make and sell products on a scale not possible in the past, based on Linux servers. I know lots of people living well on Linux-created jobs, and a big part of my own income is also originating from there.

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Nobody is paying for it, so everyone keep their day job and work on this when they can and when they feel like it?
Or the occasional antisocial coder w/ no life who dedicates everything to tech (reiser?)?

What often happens is that all these companies relying on open source software will dedicate some part of their effort to fix, adapt and improve the software, which is then fed back to the community (as most Linux software is GPL or LGPL licensed, feeding back to the community is the only way to legally distribute the OSS we work on). Among all the companies involved this adds up to a huge number of hours invested and paid for to OSS. And happily paid for, I should add. (And I'm one of those many who have done this kind of work, so I know it's for real :)).

Re: Is this what's holding back Linux and OSS in general?

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Originally Posted by iamthewalrus (Post 177772)

No need for disdain and elitism of the infuriating populist variety, either; I was responding to a claim that "Linux for the unwashed masses", as you put it, was necessary, and I didn't deny it was beneficial.

@briand: Thanks for pointing that out; I caught it, but it was immaterial to that statement which book; my point was just that you did not recommend learning regexps from the grep man page, but somewhere else.

Re: Is this what's holding back Linux and OSS in general?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benson

Thanks for pointing that out; I caught it, but it was immaterial to that statement which book; my point was just that you did not recommend learning regexps from the grep man page, but somewhere else.

I did that largely because the implementation varies somewhat, depending on which context it is used in. regex in grep != regex in perl, for example. There are some slight differences (and, they're covered in the above-cited reference/tutorial volume from O'Reilly), so reading the grep man page wouldn't necessarily help you gain a comprehensive knowledge of regex.

Re: Is this what's holding back Linux and OSS in general?

Bah! Anything not in grep(1) isn't 'regex', it's e.g. 'perl regex'! (NOT criticizing perl regexps, just insisting on righteous taxonomy...)

Hence my notion of grep(1) sufficiency, if (apparently) not optimality.

For other programs' variants, I'd tend to consult their docs, which usually winds up referring either to perldoc or grep(1). But I'm content to be good with generic regex, and look up other implementations as needed; anyone looking to "learn regex" is probably well served with such a comprehensive volume.