How to talk to a programmer

[georgedwilkinson]

genesis,


I pretty much agree with Rabbie. I pick posts that will give me the most pleasure for the least amount of grief.

I have read (or tried to read) several of your posts. One thing I noticed is that English may not be your first language. Sorry if I got that wrong. That is cool, if the person reading is patient and thoughtful. I'm finding that at my age I am neither.

As an example, I read about half of your post above (#20). I honestly couldn't continue on. It doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you or the way you post, it means that my concentration level is not what it used to be. So, yes, I pick posts that are clear and for which my answer will be immediately meaningful.

I don't consider the time I spend on these forums a waste of time. I learn something new every day that I believe will be valuable to me. However, the decisions I make about which posts to help out on are designed to give ME pleasure, not necessarily the OP.

I hope that helps you understand why you don't get many responses on your posts. You would do well to heed the advice here and in the links in my siggy, if you want more and better responses to your questions.

Nothing personal.

 

[genesis]

well people have different perceptions. anyway maybe you have also made it clear to me when you said that when you read post #20 and you could not continue on due to your concentration level.

well probably I wont continue on this comment because doing so might just fall into a loop.

 

[Rabbie]

Genesis, I looked at your post and I noticed you had bumped the post several times in a 4-5 hour period. This gives the impression of impatience and has a negative affect in obtaining an answer. Perhaps because this is a site with users all over the world you should wait a bit longer before nagging for an answer.

IMHO I don't think it is helpful to have a lost of posts saying "Sorry I can't help you with this question". It just clogs up the system.

As you correctly say nobody is forced to come to this forum. I come here and answer questions because I want to and so I reserve the right to choose which questions I answer. Equally there is no requirement for a particular question to get an answer regardless of how much the person asking needs the information. There is a lot of information on the web and in Access help so I repeat "if you want quick replies don't knock the guidance given on how to get it.

 

[genesis]

sure it is impatience. how hard are my questions? I dont think it is. when can really see that such post was just passed by when you can really see that there are alot of capable individuals that can help but none. I dont get it. I wont bother posting this comment of mine if I can see that this is not happening.

 

[namliam]

sure it is impatience.

And this is key, you need to learn either patience or... hire someone for real $$$ to direct answer your questions for you

Perhaps even pay someone to do the entire project? NOW instead of you fiddling about for months?

If you are simply learning it, access has a long and steep learning curb... if you want to learn it get a patience on asking questions and/or be sitting someplace googling away for hours at an end... There is no (free) board that will / can guarantee answers inside 5 minutes or even 5 hours for every question. Let alone questions that change "constantly" looking like they are already in progress of beeing answered or that are "URGENT PLEASE HELP" or are bumped every 2 minutes.

 

[genesis]

impatience their is not about how long it took for a reply. impatience there is a result from this situation.

For example I have this question about simple code, whats lacking on the code. For 5 minutes, it didnt get answer. Then a new poster post his not easy question and after a minute or so, he gets answer. ten minutes past still I got no answer. the other poster got two or more replies. another new poster post his question and after several minutes he got his answer. still no reply for my simple question.

This is some situation I got. that is why I dont get it why my simple question that I did not find answer from googling also didnt get replies from the forum. hours past still no replies. And I definitely need that assistance. Do you think I still should not feel being impatient?

Sure I can pay someone or hire. But when I googled in the internet that this kind of forum exists, I was very hopeful and assured that I have better way now to solve my access problems.

 

[Banana]

I'm sure everyone has seen a variant of "Heavens help those who help themselves."

Sometime the best way to get an answer is to actually try. The process of trying is always educational and I suspect far more than waiting for an answer.

When I'm wrapping my brain around a new concept that I'm unfamiliar with it, I just go and bang out code and see if it compile. If it didn't, then I google up the syntax & members and tweak my code & try again. When it successfully compile, I run it and of course it doesn't return the expected result or maybe it did but with junk I didn't want to have. I then google again for more details, consulting manuals and documentations and trying different syntax which may cause my code to not compile anymore and thus go back a step. I keep at this until I finally get what I want.

During that time, 80% of my time are spent reading the manual & documentations, and reading other peoples' reporting of issues that could even be merely tangential to what I am dealing (it's usually in the tangents that I can discover some inferences and assumptions that manuals or documentations fail to explicitly state). As my proficiency increases, the time spent reading decreases as I commit more to my memory, but that can only be done through practice, which is just another word for 'try'!

Contrast this to getting an answer from someone. It may do exactly what you were looking for, but it's all without the insights that the original programmer developed when writing that piece of code and failing many times, and for a novice, this is always lost. The only way to move from novice into experienced user is to just try, doing as much with little what you know.

I do not think there is such as "quality time" in programming where you can learn everything there is to know in an X frame of time. Only after many many hours wasted with broken code and failures, does one becomes a good programmer. Forums serve a important component by making our access to the information available but it cannot help us learn how to use the code in a rational way and understand the implications. That can only be had by trying.

 

[genesis]

yes that is true. trying, experimenting are some ways to learn. but when you run out of tries and experiments and you have done everything already, researched through googling and still no results, you search for other ways to search for the answer and test, try , experiment on it. on the process you still learn.

 

[Brianwarnock]

impatience their is not about how long it took for a reply. impatience there is a result from this situation.

For example I have this question about simple code, whats lacking on the code. For 5 minutes, it didnt get answer. Then a new poster post his not easy question and after a minute or so, he gets answer. ten minutes past still I got no answer. the other poster got two or more replies. another new poster post his question and after several minutes he got his answer. still no reply for my simple question.

.

Perhaps your question was not simple, how can you classify as such if you cannot answer it?

A simple question, for anybody, is one that he/she can answer, perhaps the people on the forum at that time could answer other questions but not yours.

Brian

 

[Kryst51]

impatience their is not about how long it took for a reply. impatience there is a result from this situation.

For example I have this question about simple code, whats lacking on the code. For 5 minutes, it didnt get answer. Then a new poster post his not easy question and after a minute or so, he gets answer. ten minutes past still I got no answer. the other poster got two or more replies. another new poster post his question and after several minutes he got his answer. still no reply for my simple question.

This is some situation I got. that is why I dont get it why my simple question that I did not find answer from googling also didnt get replies from the forum. hours past still no replies. And I definitely need that assistance. Do you think I still should not feel being impatient?

Sure I can pay someone or hire. But when I googled in the internet that this kind of forum exists, I was very hopeful and assured that I have better way now to solve my access problems.

I understand your frustration, but try to understand what people are telling you, I for one, afte rreading your question would not have answered it as I am not good at the vba side of things yet, I am still learning. Also, If someone posted a thread about queries, forms or reports I might be able to provide assistance as I am more familiar with these things. Sometimes I read a question, and it is too involved for me, I don't know all the idosyncrasies of how to guide someone to the correct answers, and sometimes, I just plain don't feel like it. You need to grasp that, people are not required to answer your questions, therefore, it is best to do everything you can to make them want to answer it. Forcing yourself to have patience even when you are frustrated and proceeding as if you have it, can only help you get the answers you so desperately need.

 

[genesis]

dont you think I can't decipher whose member in this forum are capable and those that are not?

I have been in this forum for sometime now and I have seen those who are capable.

 

[Kryst51]

dont you think I can't decipher whose member in this forum are capable and those that are not?

I have been in this forum for sometime now and I have seen those who are capable.

And you may have annoyed those people with your poor etiquette..... When you join a new community, it is best to proceed with caution, until you know them and how they respond to things.

 

[genesis]

just like with my question post/right now about

http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=182631

is that difficult, wasn't I properly asked? didn't i tried to research it myself before I came here and ask for assistance?
as you can see its not been resolved but as I can decipher it, many members this time are capable of answering it but as you can see, only one has replied until this moment.

So what do you think about that situation.

 

[Scooterbug]

Another factor that comes into play when it comes to help is the perception of yourself that you put out there. The way you act plays a big part on not this forum, but forums in general.

Genesis, you make reference to your post about proper syntax for an Insert query. You say that it hasn't been resolved, yet clearly namliam answered it. You come back with (paraphrasing) "I cant check your suggestion because i'm at an internet cafe". That there is insulting in my eyes. You ask for help and when you get a reply you cant even try it out? Nobody here is a mind reader. The perception I get from your reply is one of "Don't explain it...just do it for me". To me, when I get that vibe, my first inclination is to simply not answer.
You also mentioned another post of yours about using VBA to link tables. As mentioned by others, you were impaitent. You said that the question was a "simple" question. To me, I didn't think so. The easy solution in my eyes is to just link all the tables in the first place. What is simple for one person isn't necessarly easy for the next. Complexity is not a quantifiable number. You need to remember that.

 

[namliam]

as you can see its not been resolved but as I can decipher it, many members this time are capable of answering it but as you can see, only one has replied until this moment.

You want all to reply to the same thread saying "I agree with" ??

I too (despite beeing the "one" that replied) tend to ignore ongoing threads as I am likely to introduce more static/miscommunication than I would provide answer.

It just is the way it is, you can either life with it post on 100 different fora hoping to find an answer in 5 minutes... Atleast it keeps you busy while waiting for an answer on all.
Then again replying to all will cost mucho more time than just being patient.

 

[Brianwarnock]

Give it a rest Col, you are becoming tiresome so that even your friends and sympathisers get fed up.

Brian

 

[dan-cat]

As my proficiency increases, the time spent reading decreases as I commit more to my memory, but that can only be done through practice, which is just another word for 'try'!

Unless in the Jedi arts you are trained from which all debugging you are excused.

Link

 

[Banana]

dan-cat,

um, is it OK if I blame it on bad influence of CLR, with their Try/Catch/Finally littered all over?

 

[genesis]

Another factor that comes into play when it comes to help is the perception of yourself that you put out there. The way you act plays a big part on not this forum, but forums in general.

Genesis, you make reference to your post about proper syntax for an Insert query. You say that it hasn't been resolved, yet clearly namliam answered it. You come back with (paraphrasing) "I cant check your suggestion because i'm at an internet cafe". That there is insulting in my eyes. You ask for help and when you get a reply you cant even try it out? Nobody here is a mind reader. The perception I get from your reply is one of "Don't explain it...just do it for me". To me, when I get that vibe, my first inclination is to simply not answer.
You also mentioned another post of yours about using VBA to link tables. As mentioned by others, you were impaitent. You said that the question was a "simple" question. To me, I didn't think so. The easy solution in my eyes is to just link all the tables in the first place. What is simple for one person isn't necessarly easy for the next. Complexity is not a quantifiable number. You need to remember that.

Yes, indeed that perhaps namliam had clearly answered it, do you think for me that has little knowledge about code (that is why I am asking for help) would automatically get what is the answer that namliam is pertaining to? Yes I am in the internet cafe and I cannot test it. while I got back home after that, it tested to debug.print it however that doesnt work. I tried msgbox err.description and it states the problem in the FROM Clause. and I tried to modify and modify the code at home but none worked.

I wont be asking for that question in here if I have managed to solve it myself or from the researched I have been doing googling and gooling.

 

[genesis]

I'm sorry Col. Didnt I mentioned here that I can see whose individual online are capable but nonetheless didn't bother..