| Charlton Wilbur 2005-08-30, 6:58 pm |
| >>>>> "NLD" == Norman L DeForest <af380@chebucto.ns.ca> writes:
NLD> I remember reading about a university support desk for
NLD> student programmers that had a teddy bear in the reception
NLD> area. An ironclad rule was that any student wanting help
NLD> with his/her program had to describe the problem to the teddy
NLD> bear in complete detail before asking the actual support
NLD> people. Just describing the problem to the bear was often
NLD> enough for a student to realise where he/she was going wrong.
NLD> Apparently the teddy bear was responsible for solving more
NLD> than half of the support desk enquiries.
I have a stuffed tiger currently employed in this capacity, and he's
*very* good. He had no trouble when I started working in Objective-C,
though PHP seemed to baffle him regularly when I was working that
contract.
When I was an undergraduate, I frequently used computer science
professors instead, and while they appreciated being helpful, they had
other things to do than stand there and have a problem explained to
them until I realized what I was doing wrong.
The discipline of producing the shortest program that demonstrates the
problem is also helpful, especially before asking a newsgroup for
help. Even if you don't work out what the problem is in the process,
the people offering help in the newsgroup will be much happier reading
through 20 lines of code than 2000.
Charlton
--
cwilbur at chromatico dot net
cwilbur at mac dot com
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