Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 10:16:11 -0500 From: Sandro Mancuso <sandro.m@videotron.ca> To: 'TheUaRT' <theuart@hotmail.com>, freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.org Subject: RE: FreeBSD Message-ID: <000501c1bfa1$b0bcaf00$6400a8c0@windows> In-Reply-To: <OE43SYNIPukg3nOpj530000d975@hotmail.com>
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"The[UaRT]" there's a simple reason for this. Too many people act too na=EFve, which can be very irritating for those trying to ask. I may = add that looking for help on IRC is perhaps the worst route. You'll generally get much less help, in that respect I agree with you with respect to their arrogance. Very often they don't know enough to really help you either I've gathered. Those that do, won't. However the perceived arrogance can be justified imho. Like you, I'm a relative newbie. The problem is that all too often, the newbie looks for someone to do everything for him/her. Rather than trying to solve a problem, they will look for someone to solve it for them, and they just expect the perfect answers to all. Its just not like that, and moreover, it is not the best way to learn. Imagine this scenario. You're in school, you have an assignment to do that a teacher hands out to you, but WITH the answers. The result is (no matter what you say, with years of experience you'll wind up agreeing) invariably that one will not actually learn from this assignment if asked about it later. The problem here is twofold. Its nice and all to have the answer, but the steps involved in finding a solution is not known, so the "student" will never know how to come to that answer. Secondly, I personally feel that one's retention of what's going on is lessened by easily just feeding them the answer. Its just too easy to "cheat." But I digress. What I have always told everyone is the following. I have FreeBSD installed on 2 machines. Now that they're working well, I learn nothing. However, for 3-4 months I kept running into little problems with them. I worked at it until they worked to my liking. Its during this period that I learned a great deal about FreeBSD. You see what I'm getting at? Quick example: At one point my IP was assigned to me via DHCP. I was having a very difficult time getting it to work for me. I had to change some stuff with respect to dhclient to get it working without dropping my IP every 12 hrs. Now, had someone simply told me "do this this and this in dhclient.conf" what would I have learned? I still would have no idea why I did it, or why it wasn't working to begin with, so I can deal with it again in the future. One last thing: These people are here to help, yes. However they are certainly not paid for this assistance they provide. Therefore, in order to reduce the number of questions they get, many self help tools have been made available. Thus the "RTFM" statements you'll often get. You get what you pay for in the end (which is not meant to take away from the value of this free operating system) so if you aren't paying 2-300$ for an OS, don't expect there to be someone at the other end of an 800 number holding your hand either. Just "my two cents" Sandro Mancuso "Windows is the virus, Linux is the Vaccine FreeBSD is the cure." > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG [mailto:owner-freebsd- > newbies@FreeBSD.ORG] On Behalf Of TheUaRT > Sent: February 27, 2002 9:40 AM > To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.org > Subject: FreeBSD >=20 > I am a newbie to FreeBSD (2nd attempt) but not to computers. > I've always stood for people helping others learn current/new > technologies to it's maximum potential... But it seems now > a days that people keep telling you to RTFM. What a concept. > It would be nice if people weren't so arrogant. Specially on IRC. >=20 > There's my 2 cents. Enjoy! >=20 > The[UaRT] >=20 > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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