From: bjl@loki.research.ptt.nl (Ben Lippolt) Subject: Re: WANT GCC? FORGET FAQ.GCC AND README?? READ THIS FIRST!!!! Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 07:27:59 GMT
sakaria@vipunen.hut.fi (Sakari Aaltonen) writes:
>While I think Matthew Lewis's first post was in extremely bad taste, I
I agree!
>do wish the knowledgeable people here would keep their shirts on. Calling
>someone a stupid jabberer won't make him any smarter.
>Because they want to learn, they ask dumb questions and whine about
>README's and INSTALL's. They want to understand things. It's not enough
>to run a script; they want to understand what the script does, and why.
The problem with his post wasn't that he asked dumb question, but it was
the tone of his article. It was very arrogant AND HE YELLED ALL THE TIME.
Also, he gave some bad advice which might confuse other beginners. The
problem with his advice is that most of the things he did were clumsy and
were targeted to *his specific situation*.
My impression is that if beginners ask 'dumb' questions (or show that they
didn't read the FAQ's, README's and INSTALL's), but do it politely
almost everybody accepts them and tries to help. The problem is with
those people who whine about things (Linux doesn't support enough SVGA
cards!, GCC-installation is crap!, the ftp-sites are a mess!, etc).
It is posts like that which start the flame wars.
Ben Lippolt.