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Is there a "secret" code among coders to not offer any help???
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Is there a "secret" code among coders to not offer any help???
#1
I am new to coding and I am noticing not too many questions get answered in the forums. This one included. Is it because coders don't want people to be able to get answers in the forums as that could have an effect on their livelihood?

I have also seen that when coders offer help in a thread they will then go back and delete their answer after a short time has passed. What purpose does that serve?

Thank you,
yeto
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#2
(Jul-17-2019, 03:16 PM)yeto Wrote: not too many questions get answered in the forums
Can't be talking about our forums. Only 500 threads have no responses. Some of them are not even meant to have any responses (tutorials for examples). In total we have 17,112 threads. Only 2.92% of threads do not have a single post in them.

As for no answers at all...

I dont work in the field of programming. So i could care less of flooding the market with coders. But that is not why some threads get no answer.

It can highly depend on the question itself. For example if someone does not give the proper information, then its hard to give a proper answer. 9 out of 10 threads do not have all the information listed here. I am more eager to answer a question when it does as it means i dont feel like i am pulling teeth to answer their question. If i am putting my own time in, i expect the person asking the question do the same. Im not just talking about the top portion either. Almost no one asks a question with all of this described
Quote: Describe the symptoms of your problem carefully and clearly.
Describe the environment in which it occurs. Provide the Python version, execution process, Operating System, 3rd party library, program structure, etc.
Describe the research you did to try and understand the problem before you asked the question.
Describe the diagnostic steps you took to try and pin down the problem yourself before you asked the question.
Describe any possibly relevant recent changes in your computer or software configuration. How did you install X program? From where? Provide the install link. Describe how you installed it, etc.
If at all possible, provide a way to reproduce the problem in a controlled environment.
Describe the goal, not the step. If you are trying to find out how to do something, begin by describing the goal. Only then describe the particular step towards it that you are blocked on.
Describe your problem's symptoms in chronological order
Describe the problem's symptoms, not your guesses
Write in clear, grammatical, correctly-spelled language
Use meaningful, specific thread/subject titles. From the title alone it should give a good indication of what the problem is. It should be a summary of your post. For the Smart Post above, you could use "I am getting an IndexError" or " Unexpected IndexError". If you are not getting the output expected and not getting an error at all, then it would be "Unexpected Output".
Separate the main question from the details to easily identify. Include a main question and do not assume the problem is obvious without it.
The more of that in the thread, the better and easier it is to answer. As well as weed out confusion.

It also can depend on experience. No one has used all 3rd party modules out there and thus there is always a limited user knowledge when asking about a specific module. The more widely it is used, the more users know about it. We all can answer python standard libraries...and some not even that. But 3rd party libraries are tailored to do a specific task. And not all of us do that task.

Another reason: We all are here voluntary. We don't get paid to answer questions. We have a life too. Sometimes mods/admins are just gone for a while leaving less people to answer.

There is also just a sheer number of threads. Sometimes they do get lost. Sometimes we accidentally mark them as read when not intentional. This is why we have the unanswered posts. Sometimes i go in there and find posts that are a couple days old with an easy answer and am surprised to see a thread not answered yet.

As for deleted/edited answers....

Quote: I have also seen that when coders offer help in a thread they will then go back and delete their answer after a short time has passed. What purpose does that serve?
This is not allowed here for that reason among others. I purposely installed a plugin to revert edited posts to their original if someone deletes their content. Please inform us if someone here does that.

EDIT:
If you look at your threads, they are one liners. Some with code, but not all. Not a lot of information to begin with.
Quote:On some other editors if I pressed F1 the editor would bring up a more complete help file. Is this possible with Thonny?
Quote:Why is left mouse click not working?
Quote:Could someone point me in the right direction as to how I can set the time to milliseconds? I tried ("04:39:03:200") but it wouldn't work.

Though these are able to be answered with such little information, someone like me cannot. Never used Thonny, pyautoGUI, Pulover, and i use Vim as an editor (no GUI at all). And i dont use the schedule module enough to be able to answer anyone's question about it. But if you are getting a block with people not answering questions. I would look into providing more solid information. Especially when the questions start getting more complicated.

Sometimes 3rd party module questions are best asked to the people that use it a lot. Usually finding their github page leads you to them. The same for IDE's. Sometimes you will hit the jackpot on a general forum and find someone that knows about it, sometimes not. If not, go to the devs and their group.
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#3
Concerning your questions, I didn't answer because I couldn't. I don't use Thonny nor pyautogui nor pulover and I don't know if the schedule module can go down to milliseconds. I guess the answer is in the schedule module's documentation. From my experience, one can schedule events very precisely, at least in linux, by using the threading module's lock and condition objects with timeout.

The main reason could be the thousands of library that exist for python, and nobody can be an expert in all these libraries.
Reply
#4
(Jul-17-2019, 03:47 PM)metulburr Wrote:
(Jul-17-2019, 03:16 PM)yeto Wrote: not too many questions get answered in the forums
Can't be talking about our forums. Only 500 threads have no responses. Some of them are not even meant to have any responses (tutorials for examples). In total we have 17,112 threads. Only 2.92% of threads do not have a single post in them.

As for no answers at all...

I dont work in the field of programming. So i could care less of flooding the market with coders. But that is not why some threads get no answer.

It can highly depend on the question itself. For example if someone does not give the proper information, then its hard to give a proper answer. 9 out of 10 threads do not have all the information listed here. I am more eager to answer a question when it does as it means i dont feel like i am pulling teeth to answer their question. If i am putting my own time in, i expect the person asking the question do the same. Im not just talking about the top portion either. Almost no one asks a question with all of this described
Quote: Describe the symptoms of your problem carefully and clearly.
Describe the environment in which it occurs. Provide the Python version, execution process, Operating System, 3rd party library, program structure, etc.
Describe the research you did to try and understand the problem before you asked the question.
Describe the diagnostic steps you took to try and pin down the problem yourself before you asked the question.
Describe any possibly relevant recent changes in your computer or software configuration. How did you install X program? From where? Provide the install link. Describe how you installed it, etc.
If at all possible, provide a way to reproduce the problem in a controlled environment.
Describe the goal, not the step. If you are trying to find out how to do something, begin by describing the goal. Only then describe the particular step towards it that you are blocked on.
Describe your problem's symptoms in chronological order
Describe the problem's symptoms, not your guesses
Write in clear, grammatical, correctly-spelled language
Use meaningful, specific thread/subject titles. From the title alone it should give a good indication of what the problem is. It should be a summary of your post. For the Smart Post above, you could use "I am getting an IndexError" or " Unexpected IndexError". If you are not getting the output expected and not getting an error at all, then it would be "Unexpected Output".
Separate the main question from the details to easily identify. Include a main question and do not assume the problem is obvious without it.
The more of that in the thread, the better and easier it is to answer. As well as weed out confusion.

It also can depend on experience. No one has used all 3rd party modules out there and thus there is always a limited user knowledge when asking about a specific module. The more widely it is used, the more users know about it. We all can answer python standard libraries...and some not even that. But 3rd party libraries are tailored to do a specific task. And not all of us do that task.

Another reason: We all are here voluntary. We don't get paid to answer questions. We have a life too. Sometimes mods/admins are just gone for a while leaving less people to answer.

There is also just a sheer number of threads. Sometimes they do get lost. Sometimes we accidentally mark them as read when not intentional. This is why we have the unanswered posts. Sometimes i go in there and find posts that are a couple days old with an easy answer and am surprised to see a thread not answered yet.

As for deleted/edited answers....

Quote: I have also seen that when coders offer help in a thread they will then go back and delete their answer after a short time has passed. What purpose does that serve?
This is not allowed here for that reason among others. I purposely installed a plugin to revert edited posts to their original if someone deletes their content. Please inform us if someone here does that.

EDIT:
If you look at your threads, they are one liners. Some with code, but not all. Not a lot of information to begin with.
Quote:On some other editors if I pressed F1 the editor would bring up a more complete help file. Is this possible with Thonny?
Quote:Why is left mouse click not working?
Quote:Could someone point me in the right direction as to how I can set the time to milliseconds? I tried ("04:39:03:200") but it wouldn't work.

Though these are able to be answered with such little information, someone like me cannot. Never used Thonny, pyautoGUI, Pulover, and i use Vim as an editor (no GUI at all). And i dont use the schedule module enough to be able to answer anyone's question about it. But if you are getting a block with people not answering questions. I would look into providing more solid information. Especially when the questions start getting more complicated.

Sometimes 3rd party module questions are best asked to the people that use it a lot. Usually finding their github page leads you to them. The same for IDE's. Sometimes you will hit the jackpot on a general forum and find someone that knows about it, sometimes not. If not, go to the devs and their group.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to reply. I will take your advice and check github for contacts. I am learning but I can see it is going to be a slow process.

Kind regards,
yeto

(Jul-17-2019, 03:50 PM)Gribouillis Wrote: Concerning your questions, I didn't answer because I couldn't. I don't use Thonny nor pyautogui nor pulover and I don't know if the schedule module can go down to milliseconds. I guess the answer is in the schedule module's documentation. From my experience, one can schedule events very precisely, at least in linux, by using the threading module's lock and condition objects with timeout.

The main reason could be the thousands of library that exist for python, and nobody can be an expert in all these libraries.

Thank you for taking time to look at my questions. I appreciate your help.

Thank you,
yeto
Reply
#5
i have seen no such secrecy here. maybe there is a pact to share the questions around to so people might get more than one answer.
Tradition is peer pressure from dead people

What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Two languages? Bilingual. One language? American.
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