Re: Giving an application a window icon in a sensible way


"Twisted" <twisted0n3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1165362974.946848.43630@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

However, a specific case where it's certainly stupid to
[google]
is this one:
* You're with a bunch of people.
* One of them mentions something unfamiliar, and clearly knows a fair
bit about it.
* You want to know more.

At this point, which is more sensible: running off and googling it
which *might* work? Or asking the person that's right in front of you
that quite definitely knows the answer?

In a physical context, where there may not be any computers around, it
makes more sense to ask them. In a USENET context, where you're using a
computer just to make the reply, and there's no "running off" involved, it
makes more sense to google, and where you can't ask the person in front of
you, seeing as there *is* no person in front of you. You seem to be mixing
these two different scenarios up.


It's not as if you're even asking someone to do some research for you.
They already have, in a sense; the info you want is info they *already
know* and seemed enthusiastic about less than two minutes ago. All
you're asking them to do is write a paragraph of at least preliminary
info, or a URL directly to more, or even a URL for a google search with
whatever query that produces a bunch of obviously-relevant hits at the
top of the results page.
Things they already have in their head, to judge by their behavior, and
would not have to go looking for. Things that, regardless, take no more
effort for them to do than to snap out a "Google is your friend,
numbnuts!" type of response or something equally useless and/or
hostile, and produce far better results.

No one gave you that response, so I don't know why you're complaining
about it in cljp. I did see a response of "Google for 'Java ant'" which you
seemed to have dismissed as "wouldn't/shouldn't work".


Except I don't think it's as big of a problem as you claim it is.
IMHO,
there's only 1 person in cljp who is a bit too snappy to newbies, but he
*does* provide valuable information in his snappy posts.

Well, let's do our own count shall we? In this thread alone, we had a
dubious response from a Patricia Somebody, followed closely by
"Wouldn't it be MUCH easier...", clearly flaming, from someone
different, so that's 2 and counting.

Looks like you've lowballed that estimate ...

[Calls me "overly sensitive"]

That's better than "idiot" but it's still a borderline flame. Watch it.

If you think "Patricia Somebody" is too snappy with newbies, then I
claim you are overly sensitive. If you think my calling you overly sensitive
is a borderline flame, then I claim you are overly sensitive.

Except I think, on the long term, that one snappy poster makes more
valuable contributions to this newsgroup [snip insult]

And if they were given an incentive to be nicer, you think that would
drive them away?

I think if you told this person to stop being so snappy to newbies,
they'd reduce the amount of helpful posts they'd make.

Well... in this case, I think it'd be more valuable to teach the n00b
to
worry so much about saving face. Easier to change that one n00b than to
change meanie everyone that n00b will ever encounter the rest of his/her
life, right?

Easier is irrelevant. The "meanie"s are the ones in the wrong, so it is
they that must be induced to change their behavior. It is that simple.

You seem to have a different definition of "must" than I do. Perhaps you
meant "ought to"?


In c.l.j.p we have a somewhat different situation: people posting
questions here are ipso facto programmers,

Actually, this isn't always true...

Who the heck else would you expect? I don't think the average lay
person (or physicist for that matter) routinely asks questions about
Java that aren't better answered by surfing Sun's site...

I answer this in the very next paragraph. You should read the entire
post before typing your replies.

Occasionally, we'll get posts here asking why a particular applet won't
work, and the OP is an end-user that just wants to get it to work, and is
not interested in learning the Java programming language at all.

Well, that's rather odd. The newsgroup's clearly for programming and
developing in Java rather than deploying it or getting the plugin to
work. Isn't there a comp.lang.java.misc or similar for that sort of
stuff?

The existence or not of other groups does not change the reality of what
goes on in this newsgroup. This is another issue with your thought process:
You seem to think that everything in the world actually *does* happens the
way you think it *should* happen. You think everybody who posts in this
newsgroup is a programmer, simply because everybody who posts in this
newsgroup *should* be a programmer. You think a google query for "Ant"
doesn't return the build software, simply because it *shouldn't* return the
build software, etc.

Things don't always work the way you think they should, and you'll
probably make less false assumptions, fewer mistakes, and better models of
reality, if you discard that idea.

- Oliver


.

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