Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> It always amazes me that there are people who don't know how to ask for
> help in a way that gets them help as well as how to search for an answer.

Jim, before giving such statemens, which I may consider an insult, please...

- elaborate in which way I asked "the wrong questions", or however you like to
put it,

- take note of the fact that usually I *DO* know how to search for answers
myself, and I'm also convinced that I normally *DO* know how to ask "smart
questions".

- crank your arrogance down a notch, and become aware of the fact that a topic
may be so complex to a noob, that asking the right questions (and, maybe even
more, filtering out helpful answers and/or understanding them) can become a
complex problem in itself.

Please note that if someone asks you to find an answer to his problem, he may
actually *need* someone to do that for him. Not because he's generally too
stupid to ask smart questions, but because in this particular case he simply
lacks the essential background knowledge that you may have plenty of.

It's easy to look down on people in such a situation as if they were just trying
to steal *your* time & energy instead of investing *theirs*. I was aware of this
problem from the very beginning, even while I was writing that initial post, and
tried my best to avoid this kind of reaction. Looks like I didn't succeed in
that.

I'm a freelancing software developer, and know of the value of time. But I also
believe that if a problem can be solved by one person in 10 seconds that would
take the other hours, then it would be a horrendous waste of productivity to
let that poor guy actually spend those multiple hours.

I myself am more than willing to invest a few minutes of my time if I can help
someone out - even if I'm *not* paid for it, for nothing but the hope that I
might be treated likewise when I need help. Looks like you are not.

Case closed, at least as far as I'm concerned. My clock has been runing smoothly
ever since, and my general solution-finding skills are much better than you
possibly guess.

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