From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Aug 27 7:35:22 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mailhub.cns.ksu.edu (grunt.ksu.ksu.edu [129.130.12.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E38B15593 for ; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 07:35:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from beemern@ksu.edu) Received: from ksu.edu ([129.130.61.24]) by mailhub.cns.ksu.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1/mailhub+tar) with ESMTP id JAA05198 for ; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 09:35:05 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <37C6A26C.FC840DBA@ksu.edu> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 09:36:29 -0500 From: beemern@ksu.edu X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.3.9 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: adopt a newbie program References: <00a001bef00d$76fbb100$857e03cb@jdy> <199908271403.JAA20615@beowulf.utmb.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "M. L. Dodson" wrote: > So, speaking only for myself, I don't mind helping people if (1) > I know the exact answer off the top of my head, or (2) I can see > people have done their homework and still have a nontrivial > problem, and I have some insight as to a productive line of > research which will solve that problem. Being a mentor for a > newbie who wants to take a short cut up the learning curve does > not fit in either of those categories. To put it another way, I > don't mind being an educator (which I am by profession), in fact > I enjoy it, or I would not be subscribed to this list, but I do > mind being a questions "punching bag". Flames to /dev/null. i agree! also, i think that in one aspect, a newbie hurts himself by getting a quick/easy answer to a question. there are a lot of instances where, in searching for a solution to one problem, i've run across solutions or information pertaining to ANOTHER problem i was having. in short, "getting there is half the fun"... meaning, the path to the answer leads to many others. and a quick/easy answer to something also doesn't provide the "meaning" or the "why" something is the way it is. but, also, i don't mind helping someone if it looks as tho they've put in time/energy but are just stuck on something and can't get past it... To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message