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I don't visit the C# Q/As and forums so much these days. Sorry to say I rather preferred things before the Q/As arrived. It was good because sometimes I could help and sometimes I could learn from others, and sometimes you could debate.
But these days (especially today) it seems to be people just demanding answers on how to do things without any element of trying to understand it themselves. Either that or some question about how to get something in or out of an ASP grid control.
What happened to the "I've done this, I expect it to work can anyone help me see what I've got wrong?" questions? I hope this doesn't reflect where the industry is going as a whole.
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Rob Philpott wrote: I hope this doesn't reflect where the industry is going as a whole.
Bangalore?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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They are still there - but they do get swamped by the "do my homework" questions sometimes.
I think it's the format: they don't see other questions, so they post what they like instead of trying to post a question of a quality similar to existing ones.
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
English doesn't borrow from other languages.
English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.
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I know what you mean. It seems like the people who used to ask us to do their homework for them have now graduated, got a job, and are now asking us to do their work for them! 
Far too many forum posts:
I need to do this project. Here's the list of requirements. Send me teh codez - itz urgent!
Also, what's with the increasing number of questions which come with code samples that are susceptible to SQL Injection? Is every student now taking a course on "how to get hacked in 20 minutes or less"?
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Ah - that's because the people who used to ask us to do their homework for them have now graduated, got a job as a teacher, and don't know what the heck they are teaching about... 
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
English doesn't borrow from other languages.
English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.
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heh.
Yup. Them as could, did.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Say Goodbye to free answers ...
Or, "I can write the necessary code WAY faster if I know the context. So please 7zip the complete source of the project, and send it to me, together with the name of the company you're working for, and the name of the company that ordered the project."
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The problem is that many of the worst questions come from people who don't have any source code. They've been hired to write some code, don't know where to start, and want someone else to do it all for them.
There's nothing wrong with not knowing where to start and asking for guidance. There's nothing wrong with getting stuck and asking for help with a specific problem. But if you're just going to dump your requirements on someone else and expect them to do the work you're getting paid to do for you FoC, that's a problem.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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There is an amazing number of meanings for FoC, but I assume you meant the best "in this context" meaning: "Free of Charge" (I was expecting a nasty description of the person doing the asking.)
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KP Lee wrote: Free of Charge
Correct. 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Langenbach wrote: So please 7zip ...
So, you're looking for a new position and you found an idiot you can replace?
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Richard Deeming wrote: Is every student now taking a course on "how to get hacked in 20 minutes or less"?
That is why I added my upvote! Just read a 4 year old article on how to do user/password interface. I read the process used... GAACCKK
One of the comments said "Obviously this won't work in ASP.NET" I couldn't believe the number of "How can I get it to work in ASP.NET?" Basically, "How can I set the focus on a field in a web form?", but without understanding that's what it is doing, but on a windows form TextBox object. I have to admit, I learned C# in 2004, wrote an ASP.NET app in 2005 and haven't touched ASP.NET since, so I don't remember the answer, but if I was working in ASP.NET today, that would just be part of my general knowledge.
On second thought, I think they read that comment and didn't even try to figure out what the code was doing and wanted the whole code re-written in ASP.NET format without even realizing he had just given part of the code he used. I don't even know if the author knew his code was missing the drag and drop portion of a windows form design. I just assumed he did.
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I was never a fan of QA. The format is too "solution driven" for my taste. I prefer a good discussion about the various ways to do something, all with their own pro's and con's. Sort of like the online equivalent of "throwing something into the group", then the group brainstorms a bit, exchanges ideas, discusses them, etc.. You can sort of do it in the comments, but that's not what the format guides you towards. It wants you to give The Answertm, but that's almost never how programming works. So IMO, the whole thing is fundamentally broken.
Practically it's even worse - with QA came a huge influx of low-quality questions that are either unanswerable or trivial. Bad questions were always asked, but not at that scale.
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Agreed - 100%
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Rob Philpott wrote: I hope this doesn't reflect where the industry is going as a whole.
On the average, it does - here, in Bergen, there are 3 week courses in web development for the unemployed ...
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Yeah, but it goes the opposite way too. If you take your time to write a detailed and formatted question and all you get is the first link from google with some of your keywords as a "solution".
I perfectly understand that offering some of your free time to help others resolving their issue is nothing you can demand. But if you see a question where someone has invested some thought and time into it would be great if those who answer also do invest a bit more time into the answer. (At least read the question). Obviously when someone is writing a detailed question you could expect the poster to already have googled for his problem too.
I currently don't see codeproject as a Q&A question at all. If I have a question I go to SO (yeah, blame on me  ). It's great for the resources in form of articles and tips and I've learned a lot from those.
Just as an example:
I asked a question about hosting a WCF service with https only (without http. I don't say my question is a perfect example of a question. But it contained what I thought was necessary to understand where my problem is and what I tried to accomplish. I got a response pointing me to an article how to setup https for a service. This is quite the opposite of what I had asked for and I read an article which was only explaining what I already did. Great...
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Yes, fair point and I'm not suggesting that there is no valid content in Q/As, just a lot less than there used to be.
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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On the bright side there was an example of what I think is a good question[^] on the C# forum yesterday.
The chap/chapess made it clear that they were a beginner and had a stab at the solution which showed that they were putting effort in.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Rob Philpott wrote: I hope this doesn't reflect where the industry is going as a whole.
I'm rather afraid it does. One of the worst things I see on a regular basis is questions that reflect either a) the questioner has received some very bad teaching, or b) they really have no (or very poor) understanding of how a computer works.
Veni, vidi, abiit domum
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Unfortunately the gimme/homework, and don'-know-nuttin-and-didn-bother-to-even-search-cp questions are equally matched by a flood-tide of half-witted answers, often composed by our cadre of google-it-and-post-first-link-found repbloaters.
Still, I find satisfaction in trying to be an "educator," and in the occasional sense I have contributed in a small way to someone else's technical progress.
But, the entire reputation system as-is, I am sorry to say, is a meaningless disgrace. Anyone can rack up a couple of hundred-points per week on QA just posting "solutions" that tell people they are off-track, or that "we don't do homework"
As Mr. Natural said: " 'Twas ever Thus" ... always the capricious circus of the world, and, in its insanity, the only life-preserver one really has is one's own enduring values.
bill
"What Turing gave us for the first time (and without Turing you just couldn't do any of this) is he gave us a way of thinking about and taking seriously and thinking in a disciplined way about phenomena that have, as I like to say, trillions of moving parts.
Until the late 20th century, nobody knew how to take seriously a machine with a trillion moving parts. It's just mind-boggling." Daniel C. Dennett
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BillWoodruff wrote: But, the entire reputation system as-is, I am sorry to say, is a meaningless disgrace.
I agree with this - I think we'd be better off without it.
Why does everything which is ever said or done have to be offered up for everyone else to judge? I like the idea that people can 'agree' and to a lesser extent 'disagree' on a particular point, but aggregating every single thing up over someone's lifetime to give them a measure of worthiness according to CodeProject irritates me.
You find yourself getting sucked in to it. In real life I quite like playing devils advocate and being argumentative (in a friendly way) so thank God this reputation system doesn't exist in real life. I'd be having a breakdown.
AND it would be nice, just for once, to post something without any consideration about point scoring and whether it would prove popular or not. To focus on the point, not the popularity. Right, I'm starting to rant. Message ends.. *plink*
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Hi Robb,
As I just wrote to Richard Deeming, I feel abolishing the rep system is a kind of draconian "final solution" that could be used only if there's just no chance-in-hell for a solution in which reputation has meaning, and real value.
I believe Chris and Company have been thinking about the QA situation for some time now, and it will change.
Meanwhile, as in so many other arenas of life, we do make our own reality.
yours, Bill
"What Turing gave us for the first time (and without Turing you just couldn't do any of this) is he gave us a way of thinking about and taking seriously and thinking in a disciplined way about phenomena that have, as I like to say, trillions of moving parts.
Until the late 20th century, nobody knew how to take seriously a machine with a trillion moving parts. It's just mind-boggling." Daniel C. Dennett
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BillWoodruff wrote: a flood-tide of half-witted answers, often composed by our cadre of google-it-and-post-first-link-found repbloaters.
If the person asking the question has put some effort in, and the Google link doesn't answer their question, then it's not an acceptable answer.
If, however, the link does answer their question, or they've not put any effort into the question, then it's a perfectly reasonable response. Why should we spend time crafting the perfect answer if the questioner can't be bothered to do any research themselves?
When you get a "question" along the lines of "C# code to do X", where typing the entire question into Google would most likely return a suitable answer, then a link to http://lmgtfy.com/[^] is the most appropriate response. Otherwise, the forum becomes little more than a free mechanical Turk[^] for Google.
Helping others is a great feeling, but it only works if they want to be helped. Far too many people seem to want others to just do the work for them.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Hi Richard,
Nothing I said was intended to convey the idea that an answer to a QA question in the form of a link, or two, is, ipso facto, a "bad" answer !
I just ignore questions I think are posted in haste by folks who "just want code." But, if I think a person is really trying, and I have the idea they are struggling with English, I'll try to really help them articulate their question by asking for clarification in the form of a comment on their post.
What bothers me is seeing people who post lots of answers with links which are not really relevant to the OP's question. And, also, it is disturbing to take the time to ask reasonable questions in comments on the post seeking clarification, and then see a series of rapid answers many of which are way off-base because, as yet, the OP has not really clearly stated what they are concerned with.
I have proposed (more than once) on the CP "Suggs and Buggs Forum" that CP could do specific things to improve QA, including allowing people to "freeze" questions until the OP answer carefully posed questions by others.
Most disturbing to me is the phenomenon of seeing some of the most senior, most productive, most articulate, CP members who have commented publicly that they no longer answer questions on QA because of certain people's off-putting behavior and/or the general melee of the scene: that's a real loss for the community.
But, I am confident Chris and Co. are thinking hard about this situation now; Chris has commented he may merge what are now the QA forums and the language discussion forums.
Meanwhile, the circus goes on, and within it we make our own reality.
I find myself agreeing with Rob about a no-rep solution, but feel it's a "last resort" measure that should be used only when it's absolutely impossible to have a rep system that has real value.
yours, Bill
"What Turing gave us for the first time (and without Turing you just couldn't do any of this) is he gave us a way of thinking about and taking seriously and thinking in a disciplined way about phenomena that have, as I like to say, trillions of moving parts.
Until the late 20th century, nobody knew how to take seriously a machine with a trillion moving parts. It's just mind-boggling." Daniel C. Dennett
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A THOUSAND TIMES THIS.
On every forum in which I participate, across every language, there's a noticeable slide to "just do it for me" Q&A, a near complete lack of not only analytical thinking, but any INTEREST in analytical thinking.
I've noticed a very strong cultural correlation which I won't offer here.
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