First, these are my views and thoughts so if you disagree with any of what follows that is fine as I am always up for a good discussion but flames will be ignored accordingly.
So, onto this whole post thing. Now as most of you can summerize, I have no problem helping people here as I do it on a very frequent basis and, Im sure, all of us at one point were in the shoes of the people that are posting questions; its good karma to give back to the community and help other programmers along, right?
Well, yes, I agree that helping other programmers overcome their trials and tribulations is good karam but at what point does it stop becoming friendly advice and morph into downright doing someones work for them??
I was faced with this very secnario today when I had gone to some length to help an individual with a problem they were having and as the thread began to expand I could tell that this individual was obviously a beginner. I adjusted my posts accordingly and began to explain some things in depth and soon enough the original problem was solved. I assumed case closed and went about my day.
The long and the short of it is that the post continued on and morphed from a problem with code to the OP simply pasting Interpeter error messages and asking for someone to debug the code. That is were I stopped giving advice and told them that they would have to start figuring out things for their own. Why? Because I remember being this person when I didn't have a clue what the heck the interpeter was talking about but I pushed through, resolved the problem, and then understood what the error message was, what it meant, and what caused it. It's things like this that make one a better programmer: problem solving and perseverance.
So, back to the question at hand: is the Internet making up and coming programmers, or just programmers in general, lazy?? I understand that the Internet is a great resource and it would be a bull faced lie if I said I didn't use Google at least once a day for programming related problems/research. But, as with most things in life, moderation is key.
So, with that in mind, has the advent of sites like the Code Project and forums such as these made books near obsolete or, rather, has it made the necessity for a programmer to understand what is truly going on in their code obsolete when they can jump on Google or a forum and get a quick answer while never needing to fully understand the whys or hows?
Has the sense of accomplishment that one feels when they get a problematic piece of code to work, without outside intervention, been replaced with the shear notion that one must just "get the job done" and henceforth post their problem to a forum or go and find a code snippet somewhere so they can get on with the task at hand?
Has the desire to know what a "Subscript out of Range" error is and what caused it been replaced with a dosile approach to the situaion and programmers now not giving a damn to look for the answer but rather to just have someone tell them??
To quote another forum member, Woodyz, "Experience is what makes you an expert" and that is the whole-hearted truth when it comes to programming. Programming is, after all, about problem solving and our ability to effectively and resourcefully solve the problem at hand is what ultimately makes us experts in the end.
/rant
Thoughts?
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Read this if you want to know how to get a correct reply for your question:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
^^Took that from planoie's profile^^
^^Modified text taken from gbianchi profile^^
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