Whoa. First off, what's "not smart" about the OP's
question? It shows inquiry, interest, and a reasonable
grasp of the basics. Looks fine to me. How many VHDL
users do _you_ know who can tell you the _full_ story
about the wait statement? It's complicated and subtle.
I have never qualified the question as "not smart" (it's not my fault if
the link name is called that way) and indeed I took the time to point
out a reference (in this case the LRM) to solve the OP's doubt.
My point was rather about the method than the subject. I never talked
about "standards" of any question, but I felt that the OP confused the
newsgroup with her class:
My professors always told me to ask questions in class. If I have a
question likely others do too. Thank you for educating more than just
me today.
which IMHO is not true. Therefore the suggestions to follow the NG's FAQs.
Second, let's not get too hung up about Eric Raymond's
priggish and defensive protection of his chosen tribe
of hackers. As usual with his stuff, you'll find much
wisdom in that article - but also much that irritates
and makes little sense outside the self-satisfied
community of hackers. Take with a pinch of salt.
I do agree that *everything* should be taken with a pinch of salt, even
the words of an expert that share his wisdom or simply his point of
view. I find Eric Raymond's article quite to the point when he talks
about doing something "before you ask", that is why I pointed out the
link to that paragraph.
If you are concerned that Eric Raymond's article does not embody the
spirit of this NG I would probably be on the same boat, nevertheless I
take it with the grain of salt it needs to extract any useful
information from the noise of nowadays communications.
If you think the quoted article is disrespectful and should be removed
from the FAQs of this NG than probably we need to face this issue more
intensively and I encourage you to send your comments to the editor of
the FAQ:
(e-mail address removed)-technik.uni-dortmund.de (Edwin Naroska)
or maybe open a dedicated thread (which can be ignored by people not
interested).
Sure, the OP could have found the answer for himself.
That is why I also pointed out the "try yourself first" approach
reported in Raymond's article.
This approach is surely the most powerful even though potentially very
dangerous, since we can be deceived by the fact that "it worked" and
miss the grasp on the problem. I doubt though the OP was interested in
your mentioned complicated and subtle nuances of the "wait statement".
She showed interest in a case where the wait statement was involved and
the time expression was a variable of TIME type and that's it (or at
least I didn't catch anything between the lines).
But KJ's suggestion that he try it in a simulator is
disingenuous: tools have bugs, and sometimes support
non-LRM-conforming constructs because some big customer
demanded it, so that's not a safe way to decide what's
OK and what's not. And the VHDL LRM is a very densely
written and highly technical document; it's usually
easier to ask an expert than to ask the LRM, especially
if you're not an experienced LRM wonk.
Do you really believe the OP would have asked the question if she went
through a simulator without any problem? And what is the added value of
an expert with the respect to a tool which is used by tons of users who
are actively reporting all sorts of bugs? On top of it the OP didn't ask:
Can the argument in a "wait for (time)" be a
variable? since the simulator XYZ is giving me an error of type 123.
which would have been much more appropriate, showing the interest of the
OP to solve his/her problem and triggering the possibility for a "bug
report".
I found KJ's suggestion rather to the point and I admit I got a little
shaky myself on the OP's reply to that post when she disingenuously
wrote about her professors.
I do not argue the value of the question, but I do disagree with the
process the OP chose to learn something. Have I been too rude? Did I
hurt somebody's feeling? Well I didn't intend to, but I do believe the
NG is a valuable resource for people to learn, stimulating thoughts and
doubting answers, in a process that foster searches and exchange of
point of views and I did not read any of the former in the OP's first
intent.
Al