Hacker News Reader

Yes, it is the answer I would give to a 12 year old girl.

First off, why does your 12 year old have to be a girl? You are spouting off about diversity but you basically just used the stereotype that teenage girls are going to cry if you give them the hard truth. Why do we have to treat single mothers with kid gloves? Guess what, diving through some docs is a lot easier than anything a parent has to put up with.

3 of the 4 interns at the company I work for were women last summer, and they kicked ass. While they weren't 12 years old, they were young, and I had no issue telling them to start at the documentation.

There is a massive difference between "read the fucking manual" and suggesting "even if it takes longer, you will be better served starting with the documentation and working through that than googling or using stack overflow". One is bullying, one is teaching.

I always teach my interns to start with the docs. Give the docs 30 minutes before you Google or Stack Overflow. Give that 30 minutes before you ask a senior engineer. Struggling through it is part of the process of learning. The things you learn by going through the docs will help you later.

Or the shorter version, I want to hire someone that can answer Stack Overflow posts not find them.

  > I always teach my interns to start with the docs.
  > Give the docs 30 minutes before you Google or 
  > Stack Overflow. Give that 30 minutes before
  > you ask a senior engineer. Struggling through 
  > it is part of the process of learning. The 
  > things you learn by going through the docs will
  > help you later.

This is a skill I wish more programmers had.

Re: your shorter version... Answering questions tends to be a pretty solid way to learn about a topic. I've talked to quite a few people whose experience on Stack Overflow was that they learned more about the topic they were working in by trying to answer others' questions than by asking questions themselves.

> Ever go to a gym and ask someone how to do a basic lift only to be scoffed at? Ever been to a foreign country and have someone berate you for not understanding how to navigate through some strange process or not knowing how to speak their language well enough?

That's not asking, that's demanding that someone teach you. Its a brazen form of entitlement that completely disregards the state of the other person.

In regards to the gym, I don't go to the gym to wait around to randomly help some other person with their lifting techniques. I squeeze in going to the gym before or after work, to try to get in my exercise before I get home, so I don't die at 40. Don't be a dick and expect me to drop everything I'm doing because you don't know what you are doing. I am, literally, not here to help you.

If you really want somebody who is waiting around to help you, then your in luck: They are called personal trainers, and you can pay them to help you! If you don't have the money do that, then (god-forbid) you google it or get a book from the library and make a best effort on your own before getting pissy at me because I have other priorities than to make your life easier/less emotionally distressing.

I think the point he was trying to make was don't be a dick. You can deny someone a gym lesson if you don't have time, they shouldn't be too upset about that. Or at least point them in the right direction.

And I think it's a lot easier to be a dick online, which is why programming in particular has a lot of these situations.

> And I think it's a lot easier to be a dick online, which is why programming in particular has a lot of these situations.

I think it's a lot easier to be perceived as a dick online, too, and that probably accounts for something like an equal share of the frustration that people walk away with.

On one hand the going to the gym example is not a perfect analogy - the gym is a public place, and being accosted by some random person asking for help could be off-putting. Someone posting on stack overflow is not directed at anyone and is like a classified ad, it's not directed at you. You can easily ignore it as opposed to someone walking over to you explicitly asking for help.

However 2 things - #1 the bile you have for those asking for help is off-putting. #2 It takes more effort for someone to respond to a question and tell them off than it does to ignore it. And some of us in the programmer community would rather take the time to make a derogatory comment instead of either ignoring the comment or actually helping that person. THAT is the sign of a bully.

On one hand the going to the gym example is not a perfect analogy - the gym is a public place, and being accosted by some random person asking for help could be off-putting.

Except the culture of gyms, at least among most people to spend a lot of times at gyms and take fitness seriously, is to be helpful and charitable to others. Almost everybody I know who does any weight-lifting or anything related is always more than happy to help a n00b out if they have time.

Refusing to help someone if you're literally too busy is one thing. But a blanket attitude of "I'm not here to help you, ever, under any circumstances" is a pretty dick'ish position by the standards of many gym regulars. Of course it's your right to refuse anybody you want...

I do go to the gym, but I'm no expert. I was not aware of this. Thank you for posting this.

I guess what I was trying to say is if you were in the middle of a set and someone asked you for help I would be more understanding to the person being asked if they were annoyed about being bothered.

On the other hand you have to go out of your way to be an asshole on stack overflow, and yet it happens all the time. No one is demanding your attention or interrupting your code time to respond to a post on SO, and yet so many know it alls cannot help themselves by taking a swipe at the person posting a question. I just hate that attitude.

Maybe I should spend more time reading questions on SO and posting helpful responses.

I guess what I was trying to say is if you were in the middle of a set and someone asked you for help I would be more understanding to the person being asked if they were annoyed about being bothered.

Fair enough. There is an etiquette to things at the gym as well, and it may take a while to pick up on some of that stuff. Which is, I guess, the same as the Internet in some ways.

After years of teaching and mentoring, I love helping those "asking for help". See my stackoverflow profile if you want. However, also after years of teaching, I am very abrasive to those "demanding assistance". I find that subtly is often drained out of conversations regarding the responsibility of the teacher and the consideration of the learner.

"Can you help me understand why this doesnt work?"

...is very different from...

"It looks like you know what you are doing, fix this for me."

..even though the outcomes are often very similar.

Per padseeker's sibling comment, asking random strangers for help at a gym is not an analogy because there's no social expectation that you'll be asked for help or that you'll provide such help just by going to the gym, whereas forums are places where you're expected to ask for help.

The relevant comparison would be to the gym's front desk. So, extending the metaphor:

1) Yes, it would be offputting if you asked them about lifts there and they just scoffed.

2) Yes, I have asked for help like this before ("where's the first aid kit, I'm bleeding?") and had that treatment, and it sucked.

3) But being pointed to the appropriate resource is a very reasonable response, and it's analogous to (a precise variant of) RTFM. It would be like:

"How do I lift?" -> "Oh, ask one of the people in red shirts."

"What are the rules?" -> "Oh, it's on that sign over there."

Not much different from:

"How do I make a website?" -> "start from this link"

"How do I make my DB queries faster?" -> "search for database index"

I would like to, as warmly as possible, point out the blind spot in your response. Why is the gender/sex of the person asking important? I think your response would be better as "would this be the answer you give to a 12 year old ... Or a single parent ... or one of your own parents?" Your response appears to insinuate that females are more delicate than males and unable to handle abrasiveness. That is all.

I do remember how I started programming. I had no computer and no access to it when I got intereseted in it, so I just read every article I came across. Later, I started to buy the books I came across—that was before the www. So yes, I firmly believe, that you need to try yourself, and try hard. There was a quote, I cannot find the source any more, but it was going something like this: like in mountaineering you should not help begginers to avoid them being killed higher up.

Btw, do you realize that your remark about diversity is sexist by itself? It assumes that females are not able to cope with the same conditions males do.

>Ask yourself, would this be the answer you give to a 12 year old girl who's taken an early interest in programming? Or a single mother who's trying to switch careers to improve her lot in life? Or your own mother, for that matter? Is it really constructive to be so abrasive?

It depends on what "RTFM response" we're talking about. if it's simply,

1a) "Duh, read the docs" 1b) "RTFM"

then yes, it's abrasive and experienced programmers should cut it out. But we sometimes get the same flack for

2a) "Ah, that's called the controller and section 7 covers it."

2b) "Oh, I see. The term you're looking for is database indexing -- you should be able to get some good hits with that search term. Or 'add mysql index' for your case."

If someone is really like the diligent younger-me programmer you're referring to, they'll have already explained why the manual doesn't help.

You have to be careful not to equate the two kinds of levels of work (though obviously, politeness is always important, regardless of their level of effort).

Not sure why you chose girls/women for all of the examples here as if to cast them as extremely delicate butterflies that can't cope with the toughness that is real life.

As a father of 3 (11 yo girl, 9 yo boy, 6 yo girl) who actively works to teach all of my children programming (yes even the six year old); if someone is that delicate whether male or female then programming is not the right field. Any real programmer is going to eventually venture into unknown territory where they are unable to find an answer and they must learn to overcome.

My 11 year old daughter and 9 year old son are both currently learning Java (so they can do Minecraft mods). Our process looks like this.

1) Dad assigns chapter or chapters to read and implement lessons.

2) Child reads chapter twice. Then child reads chapter a third time while working through the exercises.

3) If child encounters and issue they are told to search the book for an answer.

4) If at this point they still have a problem they can't solve they are allowed to ask me. At that point I NEVER tell them what is wrong. Instead I ask leading questions that helps them to find the answer on their own.

Personally I wouldn't leave a RTFM comment because it is a waste of time and effort for all parties involved. However, if people leave the field due to these types of responses I think they are not well suited to being a programmer and the world has plenty of other great jobs to fill so they should consider pursuing a different passion.

> would this be the answer you give to a 12 year old girl who's taken an early interest in programming? Or a single mother who's trying to switch careers to improve her lot in life? Or your own mother, for that matter?

Yes, yes, and yes. The best thing you can do for someone is show them their questions already have been answered because they have access to a massive, growing body of human knowledge.

> Is it really constructive to be so abrasive?

It's amazing that telling someone their questions have already been answered is abrasive.

Now, I am going to be abrasive, because I'm not talking to a beginner.

> Try to remember what it was like when you were first starting out with programming.

Ya, someone was going to to bring that up, like there is some sob story everyone has not being able to read documentation.

I'm not a programmer. I have to look up all sorts of beginner stuff all the time. Always have because I don't spend a lot of time getting better at it. I don't ever have to ask questions, and I haven't from before StackOverflow or where ever programmers asked questions before, because any question or issue I had had already been asked and answered (over and over). My problems have been encountered by everyone else at the same level of experience as I am. And because I do search for answers, I don't have to wait for someone to come along to answer.

Answering the same questions over and over without telling them they could have found the answer themselves is giving a man a fish. Your not learning simply being told answers.

> Ever been to a foreign country and have someone berate you for ... not knowing how to speak their language well enough?

No I speak English so I expect everyone else to as well. This is apparently appropriate behavior since it is appropriate to expect everyone else around me to answer ever question I will ever have without ever having to do any work or research of my own.

Saying "Google it" or "RTFM" isn't showing them anything, it's brushing them off. Unless you are talking about actually linking them to a page that contains the answer.

>Ever go to a gym and ask someone how to do a basic lift only to be scoffed at? Ever been to a foreign country and have someone berate you for not understanding how to navigate through some strange process or not knowing how to speak their language well enough?

Ever asked a stranger out and been shot down harshly?

Part of the reason some people learn to respond this way is because there are so many people bothering them. One or two wouldn't be an issue. It may even be a small boost that they turn to you. But when it is person #6214, with the same problem, and the same solution, which is well documented for someone out there, it gets hard to keep responding kindly. In the same way that you aren't likely to be as nice saying no to the #6214 person interrupting you at a bar to ask you out.

> Ever asked a stranger out and been shot down harshly?

I don't think this is a great example. Just because it happens doesn't mean that's a great response, either. It probably took courage for someone to work up the guts to ask you out. Even if you have no desire of accepting their offer it's just common decency to decline with respect and not make them feel like absolute crap while doing it. The same thing could be said for answering questions - except it's even easier, because when it comes to a question StackOverflow you don't have to even respond to not be an asshole. If someone doesn't feel like it's worthy of their time they can just move on and not say anything at all.

The problem is, person #6214 doesn't know they're person #6214. If you're making yourself available for questions then you don't get to bitch about the questions you receive. It'd be like a person working an information booth getting angry at someone asking where the bathroom is.

Often they don't. It is one of those situations which doesn't seem to have a great answer. Being equally nice to everyone does come at a cost that you shouldn't be forced to pay, but the people annoying you often have no intention to do so.

So true. And not just thin skins that get discouraged. After 25 bullies, you stop asking questions. Eventually you hit a brick wall and try asking again, just to meet more glib or hurtful answers. You get discouraged by the death of 1000 cuts. You stop.

> I'm starting to understand why we have such a problem with diversity in our field

That would be true if men were treated any differently. If anything they are treated worse.

Kid gloves can preserve flighty women in IT, but it's not the reason there's so few.

> Ask yourself, would this be the answer you give to a 12 year old girl who's taken an early interest in programming? Or a single mother who's trying to switch careers to improve her lot in life? Or your own mother, for that matter? Is it really constructive to be so abrasive?

An important bit of context is implicit in both your comments, and I think the context is different, which is where some of the differences in your stances are.

It's very important to know the purpose of the asker when answering a question. If the little girl or a single mother are trying to accomplish a single thing, right now, and their purpose is not to learn, then yes, just answer the question or don't bother commenting. If their purpose seems to be to learn, then teaching them both skills on how to better teach themselves and on better ways to approach the problem are ultimately more useful.

Does it really help that single mother trying to switch careers more to be told how to fix her HTML parsing regex[1], or would she be better served with a suggestion on a library that provided a more sane way to accomplish that capability? Of course, as a community we could do better at being more civil, and providing both answers, but if ever there was a place where the "teach a man to fish" parable fit, this is it.

1: Not to start an inflammatory discussion on that. I regularly use regexen to parse well formed specific HTML pages. The trick is knowing where it's appropriate and where it's not.