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Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2005 08:25:27 -0500
From: "Marc A. Criley" <mcNOSPAM@mckae.com>
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: String Problem
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Date: 2005-09-08T08:25:27-05:00
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Tapio Marjom�ki wrote:

> But every time when a newbie presents "a simple question", nobody is willing 
> to (or capable of) answering with a couple briljant Ada source lines spiced 
> with variations and finesses ...

I _strongly_ take issue with this accusation.  Even a casual review of 
the comp.lang.ada archives will show an overwhelmingly positive and 
patient responsiveness to questions posted by both newbies and 
programmers of all experience levels.

For a recent example, see the "Help needed for ada package" thread, 
where the poster was originally looking to pay someone to do his Ada 
homework.  After being soundly thrashed for making such a request, he 
had a change of heart and decided instead to do the work himself.  This 
resulted in an abundance of technical advice being provided to him, 
including design suggestions, code snippets, links, and programming 
examples.

Show us a thread where a newbie was skewered over asking a question 
where it wasn't glaringly obvious they were trying to get someone to 
_do_ their homework, versus _help_ with it.

> 
> Decent answers would encourage the newbie to study Ada more.

The newbie has to take the first step, and do some studying on their 
own.  Once there's evidence in a posting that initiative has been taken, 
that they're asking legitimate questions about issues that could 
genuinely be confusing to one learning the language, and demonstrating 
some understanding of the language (and programming), the Adaphiles here 
have shown again and again their willingness to help out with explaining 
bugs, recommending techniques, and clarifying Ada's way of doing things.

-- Marc A. Criley
-- McKae Technologies
-- www.mckae.com
-- DTraq - XPath In Ada - XML EZ Out