People don't seem to want to help newbies in here!

[ZOLTAN]

Hi all,
I have been following some posts in here recently and I have
noticed that whenever some newbie asks a question regarding suggestions
for good tutorials, the usual answer is "Google". Get real folks,
newbies wouldn't be here if they knew "which" tutorial was good for
them! When I was a newbie, I had the same kind of experience where
Googling would lead to tens of thousands of results and you yourselves
will agree that the highest ranked results are not necessarily the
best. Hope we can show some encouragement for people who are just
starting out.... especially when they post here with the hope of
learning from the experience of the experts.

Regards,

Timmy Jose.

 

[RC]

Group comp.lang.java.help is for people ask for help.
Group comp.lang.java.programmer is for advance
people discuss and/or resolve the problems.

P.S. some college/university students don't want to
spend time do their homeworks or projects. They just
posted their homeworks here, have people write the
programs for them.

 

[Patricia Shanahan]

Group comp.lang.java.help is for people ask for help.
Group comp.lang.java.programmer is for advance
people discuss and/or resolve the problems.

I keep hearing this, but it is not how the groups were defined,
and I would have objected during the discussion period and tried to
avoid that split if it had been proposed. The following quotations are
the charters from the call for votes message that led to the Java
newsgroup reorganization in 1997.

CHARTER: comp.lang.java.help

This unmoderated group is for immediate help on any Java problem,
especially when the source of the difficulty is hard to pin down in
terms of topics treated on other groups.

This is the appropriate group for end-users, programmers and
administrators who are having difficulty installing a system capable of
running Java applets or programs. It is also the right group for
people trying to check their understanding of something in the
language, or to troubleshoot something simple.

Subject lines should include the platform that the problem occurs on,
and the browser or compiler version, e.g. [win95 netscape 2.0], [linux
hotjava 1.0 beta2], etc.

This group renames comp.lang.java.setup.

END CHARTER.

CHARTER: comp.lang.java.programmer

This unmoderated group is for problems and discussion relating to Java
as a language, programming in general and the application of libraries
and APIs not covered under other groups.

If traffic is high enough, this group may later be split functionally.
In the meantime, posts specific to a class or package should include
its name at the beginning of the title, for example, [awt], [sun.net],
etc., to facilitate easy filtering.

This group merges (renames) comp.lang.java.misc, comp.lang.java.api
into the already existing comp.lang.java.programmer group.

END CHARTER.

There is nothing in this that says that only "advance" people should
post to .programmer. Instead, the charters focus, in my opinion rightly,
on the nature of the question.

According to the charters, a beginner with a difficult question should
post to .programmer. An experienced programmer with e.g. a setup problem
should post to .help.

Based on these charters, any redirection from .programmer to .help
should also be based on the nature of the question, not the person
posting it.

I think any change to restrict .programmer to any subset of posters
should be proposed, discussed, and voted on, before being implemented.

Patricia

 

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

I have been following some posts in here recently and I have
noticed that whenever some newbie asks a question regarding suggestions
for good tutorials, the usual answer is "Google". Get real folks,

I think it's realistic to suspect your average newbie poster of not
having attempted Google. Online tutorials are a poor substitute for a
good book anyway, at least with respect to the core language.

 

[Chris Uppal]

Based on these charters, any redirection from .programmer to .help
should also be based on the nature of the question, not the person
posting it.

I agree, though I'd refine the statement a little -- the group should be chosen
on the basis of the kind of /answer/ desired (which is often implicit in the
question, of course).

-- chris

 

[dsjoblom]

Hi all,
I have been following some posts in here recently and I have
noticed that whenever some newbie asks a question regarding suggestions
for good tutorials, the usual answer is "Google". Get real folks,
newbies wouldn't be here if they knew "which" tutorial was good for
them! When I was a newbie, I had the same kind of experience where
Googling would lead to tens of thousands of results and you yourselves
will agree that the highest ranked results are not necessarily the
best. Hope we can show some encouragement for people who are just
starting out.... especially when they post here with the hope of
learning from the experience of the experts.

As was already said, comp.lang.java.help is friendlier for simple
questions.

I also think usenet in general is best for asking very specific
questions and receiving very specific answers. Usually newbies ask very
general questions, and while those questions may be important, they are
very hard to answer in a short usenet post. So either people don't
answer at all, or answer with some canned answer that is usually not
worth the (electronic) paper it is written on.

Another thing to keep in mind is that almost any question a newcomer to
Java will have has already been asked literally thousands of times. I
think it is understandable that some people eventually get annoyed with
reading the same questions over and over again, and answer with a
rather arrogant tone.

And finally, it is NOT unreasonable to ask people to do a little
research before presenting their problems to the group. This should
just be common sense to anyone asking questions, but alas, common sense
is rare.

Regards,
Daniel Sjöblom

 

[Ben]

And finally, it is NOT unreasonable to ask people to do a little
research before presenting their problems to the group. This should
just be common sense to anyone asking questions, but alas, common sense
is rare.

I agree, I've only been programming in JAVA for less than a year. But
before I started posting--specific questions--I had already read 2 books
on JAVA. One for beginners (a very general book, that I actually don't
recommend) : JAVA: an eventfull approach using BlueJ. And my second book
that I would recommend to any serious "newbie" out there: Learning JAVA
by Patrick Niemever and Jonathan Knudsen, editor: O'Reilly. Which covers
all the basics about JAVA and then some.

Also a good place to look for specific question answers before posting
is to look at the JAVA API relevent to the question.

As far as tutorials go, there aren't many good tutorials out there that
refer to complicated problems. You'll have much better luck getting a
book related to the specific topic.

Ben

 

[TechBookReport]

I think it's realistic to suspect your average newbie poster of not
having attempted Google. Online tutorials are a poor substitute for a
good book anyway, at least with respect to the core language.

Agreed.

 

[PofN]

I have been following some posts in here recently and I have

noticed that whenever some newbie asks a question regarding suggestions
for good tutorials, the usual answer is "Google".

Nothing wrong with that. This group is not a help desk. If someone
wants to get spoon-feed and needs his diapers changed he should go
elsewhere. In the old days it was RTFM. These days it is STFW. No one
is entitled to anything. Folks her don't owe anyone anything.
Particular not lazy gits looking for servants.

newbies wouldn't be here if they knew "which" tutorial was good for
them!

Some newbies wouldn't know their head from their arse. It would be nice
if they at least have the courtesy to follow rules. Read before you
write. Familiarise with local customs. Don't demand anything. Don't top
post. Demonstrate that you have already thought about the problem.
Don't tell us it is urgent,. Why should we care? etc. Oh, and when told
to read something do so before coming back.

Hope we can show some encouragement for people who are just
starting out.... especially when they post here with the hope of
learning from the experience of the experts.

*Do what you preach,* but don't tell us what we need to do. I expect to
see you answering patiently one newbie post after the other in the,
lets say, next six month. I fear for your mental health, but you are
apparently the expert with the insight who's needed here. Or are just
another troll?

PofN

 

[Patricia Shanahan]

I agree, though I'd refine the statement a little -- the group should be chosen
on the basis of the kind of /answer/ desired (which is often implicit in the
question, of course).

I agree as far as the person asking the question is concerned - they
know the intent, and can make a decision based on it. Do I want this
treated as a simple question, seeking a simple get-me-going answer, or
do I want it considered in depth?

However, people considering redirecting others from .programmer to .help
don't know that intent. They only know the question, including whatever
information about themselves the questioner has included.

Patricia

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Patricia Shanahan said something like:

Group comp.lang.java.help is for people ask for help.
Group comp.lang.java.programmer is for advance
people discuss and/or resolve the problems.

I keep hearing this, but it is not how the groups were defined,
and I would have objected during the discussion period and tried to
avoid that split if it had been proposed. The following quotations are
the charters from the call for votes message that led to the Java
newsgroup reorganization in 1997.

CHARTER: comp.lang.java.help

This unmoderated group is for immediate help on any Java problem,
especially when the source of the difficulty is hard to pin down in
terms of topics treated on other groups.

This is the appropriate group for end-users, programmers and
administrators who are having difficulty installing a system capable of
running Java applets or programs. It is also the right group for
people trying to check their understanding of something in the
language, or to troubleshoot something simple.

Subject lines should include the platform that the problem occurs on,
and the browser or compiler version, e.g. [win95 netscape 2.0], [linux
hotjava 1.0 beta2], etc.

This group renames comp.lang.java.setup.

END CHARTER.

CHARTER: comp.lang.java.programmer

This unmoderated group is for problems and discussion relating to Java
as a language, programming in general and the application of libraries
and APIs not covered under other groups.

If traffic is high enough, this group may later be split functionally.
In the meantime, posts specific to a class or package should include
its name at the beginning of the title, for example, [awt], [sun.net],
etc., to facilitate easy filtering.

This group merges (renames) comp.lang.java.misc, comp.lang.java.api
into the already existing comp.lang.java.programmer group.

END CHARTER.

There is nothing in this that says that only "advance" people should
post to .programmer. Instead, the charters focus, in my opinion rightly,
on the nature of the question.

And not even very forcibly even then. I have been hollering about this for
some time, and I finally got tired of it. There is a strange acceptance of
a sort of de facto ruling here which just does not exist. A kind of techno
urban legend.

According to the charters, a beginner with a difficult question should
post to .programmer. An experienced programmer with e.g. a setup problem
should post to .help.

And even then it's a little broadly ambiguous. "java as a language" and
"programming in general" could end up legitimately becoming the target for
many setup problems I've seen, since many setup problems are hard to
distinguish from misunderstandings in "java as a language" and "programming
in general".

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Patricia Shanahan said something like:

I agree as far as the person asking the question is concerned - they
know the intent, and can make a decision based on it. Do I want this
treated as a simple question, seeking a simple get-me-going answer, or
do I want it considered in depth?

However, people considering redirecting others from .programmer to .help
don't know that intent. They only know the question, including whatever
information about themselves the questioner has included.

Patricia

The whole tree is hopelessly broken IMO. The true general programming
catch-all should have been the super group comp.lang.java, not the sub
"c.l.j.programmer", as that is the first stop for people who don't know how
to find groups.

 

[Patricia Shanahan]

Patricia Shanahan said something like:

The whole tree is hopelessly broken IMO. The true general programming
catch-all should have been the super group comp.lang.java, not the sub
"c.l.j.programmer", as that is the first stop for people who don't know how
to find groups.

I don't know the current guidelines, but at the time of the Java
newsgroup reorganization I believe there was a convention that only leaf
groups should contain messages. We needed comp.lang.java as the parent
node for the Java language tree.

The risk of comp.lang.java.programmer getting too large was recognized,
and the intent was to split it further if necessary. On the other hand,
over-complicated unmoderated newsgroup structure just results in a lot
of cross-posting, with little reduction in the number of messages in any
one newsgroup.

Patricia

 

[Mark Space]

Hi all,
I have been following some posts in here recently and I have
noticed that whenever some newbie asks a question regarding suggestions
for good tutorials, the usual answer is "Google". Get real folks,
newbies wouldn't be here if they knew "which" tutorial was good for

I have to disagree. I just now did a search on Google for "java
tutorial" and the FIRST one to come up was Sun's Java tutorial, which is
what I would recommend anyway for someone who just popped up and said "I
don't know anything, can you give me a tutorial to read online?"

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/

So there's a good reason why we point noobs at Google: it gives you the
correct answer.


However long term I agree a good book is better. But online is cheaper,
and quicker, so people often want to try that first.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

As far as tutorials go, there aren't many good tutorials out there that
refer to complicated problems. You'll have much better luck getting a
book related to the specific topic.

Agree wholeheartedly.

In my experience its hard to go wrong with an O'Reilly book if you don't
have a personal recommendation for something else.

The only bad O'Reilly book I've seen, and I've bought several, is the
"Sendmail" one - and that's a real clunker.

 

[Oliver Wong]

Patricia Shanahan said something like:

Group comp.lang.java.help is for people ask for help.
Group comp.lang.java.programmer is for advance
people discuss and/or resolve the problems.

I keep hearing this, but it is not how the groups were defined,
and I would have objected during the discussion period and tried to
avoid that split if it had been proposed. The following quotations are
the charters from the call for votes message that led to the Java
newsgroup reorganization in 1997.

CHARTER: comp.lang.java.help

This unmoderated group is for immediate help on any Java problem,
especially when the source of the difficulty is hard to pin down in
terms of topics treated on other groups.

This is the appropriate group for end-users, programmers and
administrators who are having difficulty installing a system capable of
running Java applets or programs. It is also the right group for
people trying to check their understanding of something in the
language, or to troubleshoot something simple.

Subject lines should include the platform that the problem occurs on,
and the browser or compiler version, e.g. [win95 netscape 2.0], [linux
hotjava 1.0 beta2], etc.

This group renames comp.lang.java.setup.

END CHARTER.

CHARTER: comp.lang.java.programmer

This unmoderated group is for problems and discussion relating to Java
as a language, programming in general and the application of libraries
and APIs not covered under other groups.

If traffic is high enough, this group may later be split functionally.
In the meantime, posts specific to a class or package should include
its name at the beginning of the title, for example, [awt], [sun.net],
etc., to facilitate easy filtering.

This group merges (renames) comp.lang.java.misc, comp.lang.java.api
into the already existing comp.lang.java.programmer group.

END CHARTER.

There is nothing in this that says that only "advance" people should
post to .programmer. Instead, the charters focus, in my opinion rightly,
on the nature of the question.

And not even very forcibly even then. I have been hollering about this
for some time, and I finally got tired of it. There is a strange
acceptance of a sort of de facto ruling here which just does not exist. A
kind of techno urban legend.

According to the charters, a beginner with a difficult question should
post to .programmer. An experienced programmer with e.g. a setup problem
should post to .help.

And even then it's a little broadly ambiguous. "java as a language" and
"programming in general" could end up legitimately becoming the target for
many setup problems I've seen, since many setup problems are hard to
distinguish from misunderstandings in "java as a language" and
"programming in general".

My interpretation is that the .programmer group was intended to answer
programming questions and the .help group was intended for help with Java
problems. For example, "I tried to install Java, but it crashed halfway
through and now my registry is all FOOBAR. What do I do?" would go into
..help. "I'm a beginner and I want to learn how to program in Java" would go
into .programmer.

But as you said, I've just accepted the non-existant defactor ruling. I
gave up telling someone in .programming to post in .help and vice versa.
I'll still redirect to .gui or .machine from time to time, though.

- Oliver

 

[Andrew Thompson]

.... I just now did a search on Google for "java
tutorial" and the FIRST one to come up was Sun's Java tutorial,
*
..which is
what I would recommend anyway for someone who just popped up and said "I
don't know anything, can you give me a tutorial to read online?"

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/

So there's a good reason why we point noobs at Google: it gives you the
correct answer.


However long term I agree a good book is better.

In the 'long term' a search will provide information
that is current**. A book will not.

There are a load of algorithms/concepts/history that
does not change much over time, books are fine for
those, but the one thing books are terrible at is, 'currency'.

* Sun asks specifically that people do *not* mirror the
Java Tutorial, even though they are welcome to download
the entire document for their own use.

They provide two very compelling reasons for this request.

1. Mirrors of the Java Tutorial will confuse search engines.
( it might no longer be at the top of Google's list
2. ** Sun's copy is most up to date (obviously) and they don't
want 'out of date' mirrors of the tutorial confusing people.

...But online is cheaper,
and quicker, so people often want to try that first.

I would say I could still use books as paperweights,
but then - I don't use that much paper, and an alligator
clip on the wall keeps my scraps of paper in order.

The *only* advantage I can see to physical books is that
they can be read without a computer ('on the bus').
But with the plethora of hand-held devices with screens
and wireless comms. coming onto the market, I cannot
imagine that will be a barrier to e-document portability,
and active web-searching, for much longer.

Andrew T.

 

[Bill Medland]

Mark Space wrote:


In the 'long term' a search will provide information
that is current**. A book will not.

There are a load of algorithms/concepts/history that
does not change much over time, books are fine for
those, but the one thing books are terrible at is, 'currency'.

And there isn't a load of out-of-date tutorials/advice/... on the web?
So one has to be careful about the search criteria and looking for "last
update" etc.

I would say I could still use books as paperweights,
but then - I don't use that much paper, and an alligator
clip on the wall keeps my scraps of paper in order.

The *only* advantage I can see to physical books is that
they can be read without a computer ('on the bus').
But with the plethora of hand-held devices with screens
and wireless comms. coming onto the market, I cannot
imagine that will be a barrier to e-document portability,
and active web-searching, for much longer.

Andrew T.

I like to have at least one book on a subject, that I regard as my "master"
book. In that I add notes, pointers to other books, references to web
pages etc. Personally I find that all the information I need is spread all
over the place and I need a start point for the trail; the index of my
master book is that point. However that might just be me; I focus so much
generally that I can't keep track of the thousands of facts that some
people seem to (and then, of course, there are the others who couldn't care
less about edge cases and rigour )
I'm trying, just now, to do the same thing electronically with JNI by
editing the JNI programmer's manual; maybe I will see the light, but I
doubt it.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

I like to have at least one book on a subject, that I regard as my "master"
book. In that I add notes, pointers to other books, references to web
pages etc.

Replace 'book' with 'web-page' and that sounds like the way I
organise data. The 'web-page' is simply a bunch of links and
text notes dumped int HTML and organised using <H?>
sections and <UL>'s.

...How do you click on a link in a book? ;-)

Andrew T.

 

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

In the 'long term' a search will provide information
that is current**. A book will not.

OTOH, a book is (typically) both comprehensive and comparatively
authoritative, whereas the quality of a search is completely up for
grabs. Regardless of the language, it isn't at all difficult to find
purported tutorials giving misleading, misguided, ill-advised, and/or
outright wrong advice; even poor books can be expected to be generally
correct if not helpful.

There are a load of algorithms/concepts/history that
does not change much over time, books are fine for
those, but the one thing books are terrible at is, 'currency'.

This is certainly true, and many have taken O'Reilly to task for the
essentially pointless inclusion of a large part of the 1.5 API in the
most recent iteration of "Java In a Nutshell". The trick, of course,
is to locate authoritative sources of current information.

2. ** Sun's copy is most up to date (obviously) and they don't
want 'out of date' mirrors of the tutorial confusing people.

Definitely a problem, which is admittedly one reason to countenance
the newbie's request for a tutorial - the amount of abjectly
out-of-date material on the Internet is enormous.

The *only* advantage I can see to physical books is that
they can be read without a computer ('on the bus').

The issue IMHO is not so much the portability of physical books but
the fact that many excellent texts are simply not available in an
electronic format. (I also reiterate my argument concerning the high
standards that can be reasonably expected of books.) Until O'Reilly
and Bruce Eckel see fit to offer their work in electronic format,
physical books will continue to play a major role in providing
accurate information to programmers.