I want my code to do other stuff.

fcarney

<sarcasm>
I have some code, and it does some stuff. I want it to do other stuff. Can you write my code to do stuff I imagine? Just a quick example of "other stuff" would be nice.
</sarcasm>

😉

Chris Kawa

I usually read this as "I need to do stuff, but I don't know how and I don't have time/will/interest to research this so I'll ask others to do it for me. I can't just show up and ask for that though, because I will get my ass stack overflowed, so I'll write whatever and hope it will be read as effort, so that others will do it for me as an 'example' ".

Now there's couple of ways to approach this. You can stack overflow their ass or you can try and patiently help them. And by help them I mean guide them through, so they will achieve what they are after. It sometimes means powering through their lack of time/will/interest and general resistance to effort, spoon feeding them enough information so they can progress until they finally arrive at a solution. There can be lack of patience, frustration and anger but sometimes, just sometimes, you see that spark of "aha! I did it!" at the end and it's a great feeling for both parties.

To me giving this sort of guidance is a challenge on its own, often on par with or even greater than the task the person is trying to complete. It's easy and very tempting to turn to ridicule or sarcasm when you see that lack of effort from the person asking, but when you think about it it achieves nothing good and leaves the person asking bitter about the response and the person that gave it bitter about the state of things. When you're doing it long enough it becomes easier and easier to fall into that stance by default, because you're seeing the same thing over and over and it weights on you. You share this feeling with others going through the same thing and this creates these two opposing forces of "experts vs noobs" that often lead to very unwelcoming environment. Sometimes it's a good idea to take a break instead and recharge those batteries. That's what everyone who helps others, either by teaching, volunteering or mentoring needs to do from time to time, as constantly dealing with lack of effort can be tough on your mental well being.
That's basically where grumpy old programmers come from and I personally think we have enough of those :)

But that's just my view on this. I know there's a lot of people preferring "tough love" approach or straight out shunning those that don't show effort. To me it's like raising a kid - you can give up and ridicule or scold them for their behavior or work through the problems and try to shape them to be better. One is the easy way out and the other makes you a good parent ;)

JKSH

@Chris-Kawa said in I want my code to do other stuff.:

To me giving this sort of guidance is a challenge on its own, often on par with or even greater than the task the person is trying to complete. It's easy and very tempting to turn to ridicule or sarcasm when you see that lack of effort from the person asking, but when you think about it it achieves nothing good and leaves the person asking bitter about the response and the person that gave it bitter about the state of things.

Truer words never spoken!

JonB

@Chris-Kawa said in I want my code to do other stuff.:

To me it's like raising a kid - you can give up and ridicule or scold them for their behavior or work through the problems and try to shape them to be better. One is the easy way out and the other makes you a good parent ;)

This is a crazily indulgent approach. Children --- like programmers --- are innately either good or bad. Trying to "shape them to be better" is a waste of time. Being "a good parent" is just a question of whether you choose to visit your children's annoyances/bad behaviour on other innocent people or limit them to your own family.

;-)

Chris Kawa

@JonB said in I want my code to do other stuff.:

Being "a good parent" is just a question of whether you choose to visit your children's annoyances/bad behaviour on other innocent people or limit them to your own family.

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more. My mother was a teacher so I spent a lot of time around education topics and "difficult cases". If what you're saying were true we'd have to discard something like 90% of children because they'd be considered waste of time. It's tough work, really exhausting at times, but it's definitely worth it and can be equally rewarding when you eventually get through to someone.

This is a crazily indulgent approach. Children --- like programmers --- are innately either good or bad

Good and bad are very polarized artificial concepts invented by people and it's easy to use them as excuse to make no effort to change. You CAN sway people. Even Darth Vader had good in him :)

To think of it another way - giving up on helping a person when they are being difficult and resistant to help is the same lazy approach they take when looking for someone to do stuff for them: Case is difficult? Oh I guess they're beyond help. I'll just make a sarcastic comment and move on to something easier.

Not everyone is built to deal with difficult cases and that's fine. You don't have to. If you don't have the patience or temper to deal with it then your time might be indeed better spent elsewhere, but saying it can't be done or that it's a waste of time is just not true. Dealing with these cases might just not be something for you and that's fine, but don't discourage those that are willing to put the effort. There's a wide range of people looking for help here so there's a lot of room to pick your battles. Not everyone has to be a firefighter or a surgeon ;)

JonB

@Chris-Kawa

@JonB said in I want my code to do other stuff.:

;-)

Chris Kawa

@JonB said in I want my code to do other stuff.:

;-)

Damn you the ambiguity of emotions on the internet expressed through limited set of ascii characters! :)

J.Hilk

@Chris-Kawa said in I want my code to do other stuff.:

Not everyone has to be a firefighter or a surgeon

I don't mind being a firefighter or surgeon, I don't like to be Sisyphos
:P

Chris Kawa

@J-Hilk said in I want my code to do other stuff.:

I don't like to be Sisyphos

That's the catch. You don't know you are until you try. It's a risk assessment problem - how much time are you willing to spend trying before giving up :P

fcarney

Obligatory questions and responses.

"Show us what you have."

#include <QDebug>
int main(){
    qDebug() << "Hello Wave!";
}

"What are you trying to accomplish?"