Veteran Rants

I agree with you 100%. Most of the People on this board respond to newbies with anger and hostility, and don''t realize that THEY used to sound the same way. Some of the more experienced programmers need to chill, remember, you did not always know what you do now, espically you did not know how difficult programming could be when you started. I suggest offering helpful advice to the newbies, instead of flaming on them.

Peac Out,
Nomad

P.S Check out our(NuGen''s) Game Aftermath at aftermath3d.cjb.net
and our official company homepage at newgen.cjb.net

*Applause* . I was considering posting something about this myself, but I guess you beat me to the punch. I myself have flamed newbies from time to time. Generally It's not because I don't understand there predicament, though. Usually it's because it's obvious that they haven't put any effort forward into finding the solution/information themselves -- instead they expect others to do it for them. I dont get upset at the clueless newbie; but I do get pissed off when it's obvious that the person isn't willing to actually put forth the effort it takes to teach themselves.

My point is this: Picking on newbies who want to be good but dont know what they're doing is inexcusible. But newbies aren't always perfect angels either.

--TheGoop

Edited by - TheGoop on 2/12/00 8:49:53 AM

Well i agree with that we have to be more patient with the newbies. We all have been one once. And i got some of thoose crazy game ideas too that i wasnt able to finish before i actually set up a more compleatable project.
And everyone should know that even experienced programmers run into walls... i do it all the time.. but there is always a solution.

- Mathias

As the instigator of one of the more virulent posts WRT newbies, I must defend my position against the onslaught of criticism to those who criticize

Goop is correct: the main source of anger is towards newbies who do not exhibit a desire to teach themselves. Newbies who flock to the message board or channel and repeatedly ask questions that are clearly the result of a concerted lack of research on their part. Newbies who have made game development into the MTV of software engineering.

It gets damn annoying to see newbies ask the same damn questions about 3d algorithms, Quake programming, OGL vs. D3D, and all those other damn threads and conversations that popup almost daily. Or to see clueless newbies talk about how their project will change the face of games forever when these groups have had no experience completing even the simplest project. Or to get chewed out on #gamedev because I get sick of telling someone what they could learn much more quickly and effectively from a website or a book.

That''s it for now.

MSN

I refuse to respond to any post which asks a question that''s clearly available if they spent 5 min using a search engine like http://www.metacrawler.com/ or comming to this site & searching through the article section, or using the search feature of these message board. Not only does it show how uninspired the person who posts the question is, it also causes mass frustration among the more advanced people.

You could complain all day about how snotty and up tight the more advanced programmers appear, but that''s not going to solve anything. So here is what you can do to help yourself have a better experiance on the boards:

#1. Don''t ask completly stupid questions like "Where can I get the Direct X SDK?"

You''ll get more help if you phrase it like this "I''ve searched all over the internet using metacrawler, altavista, webcrawler, and yahoo but I can''t find the Direct X SDK. Can someone please help me find it?"

#2. Don''t just ask for help debugging your program. "I''m getting linker errors when compiling my program" doesn''t give us much information to help you on.

"I''m using Visual C++ 5.0 and I''m compiling an example program from "Tricks of the windows game programming gurus". the name of the file is Chapter_08.cpp and I''m recieving "Unresolved external errors" after including all the header and lib files" is a better way to ask a question.

We get real mad when we don''t have enough information to help you guys, and it ends up taking 5 hours of our time when it should''ve only taken 5 min.

I personaly don''t mind helping, but please show me you''ve at least TRIED finding the information your looking for!

Personally, I think the most inexcusable newbie mistake is not searching the message boards before they post. It says to search the message boards first in at least three different places at last count. It''s really hard not to pull out the flamethrowers when that question has been asked (and answered) at least four times in the last month. And in one instance, was still floating on the active topics list. That one really snarfed me off.

If I see a question where it''s obvious the person didn''t do any research, I won''t bother to answer except maybe with a "It''s in MSDN" (but that''s on a good day). It''s fairly easy for me to just skip right past. If someone else wants to answer it, fine. I''ll let them waste their time.

Perhaps they could add a feature that is just an automatic post where we can push a button and it spits out a messages that says "RTFM" (or something to that effect), and provides links to a bunch of sites and search engines.

Anyway, if a newbie asks a question, and they provide me with the information to help them solve it (source code, compiler, os etc...), and they''ve obviously done their homework ("I looked it up in MSDN, and it said ____, but I don''t know what it means."), then I''m much more likely to help.

But it''s not worth my time to flame the ones that don''t.

Mark Fassett
Laughing Dragon Entertainment
http:\\www.laughing-dragon.com

Not that we''ve improved at all...

we''ve either gotten worse, or theres more newbies

actually, just about everyone here is a "newbie", except for the elite few. don''t think you''re not a newbie just because you can make pong or something. it''s all a big learning process. (a process which I can''t wait to get out of)

JoeMont001@aol.com www.polarisoft.n3.net

I wouldn''t say we''ve gotten worse, it''s just that people are still asking the same questions without searching the boards first, or reading a tutorial. How many times have you seen questions like "How do I make a 3D RPG?" to use an often-quoted example? Every month there are probably four threads asking whether DirectDraw supports alpha-blending. Questions about the two kinds of 16-bit pixel formats come up constantly. Then there are those people who ask what seems to be a reasonable question, only once someone''s written the code for them, they ask for the part that immediately follows it in the logic, without even trying to understand the first one. Nothing pisses me off like cut-and-paste coders, heh. Then finally, there are threads that just don''t make any sense whatsoever, but thankfully those are few. Anyone remember that guy who was asking something like this:

hey guys im making a quake/diablo clone and i have a title screen and just need to know where I get the inventory and monsters plugins!?!?!???!?!?!?!?!?! inventory in Ultima Online and diablo was same so i knows it must be a plugin!?!!!!??!?!?

I know I badly misquoted that, but hey, it''s the overall idea, and the endless strings of !? that count! And then when people tried to tell him that it wasn''t as easy as he thought, it was something like:

you guys are mean!!! the people on that other message board were nice they helped out with my probs, I know it must be a plugin just tell me where to find it!??!?!?!?!?!?!!? and don''t say I don''t have any experience cause i make games with java for two year!!?!?!!!!

All right, I''m done now. And after I just got done saying how the community hasn''t been getting worse. Maybe I as an individual have gotten worse, but I don''t think the atmosphere around here is any different than it''s always been.

-Ironblayde
 Aeon Software

I have to say (as a newbie) I agree with everything said here. Including the part about lack or research. I was guilty of this untill just a day or two ago when frederic and Ironblayde pointed out that I was not really doing any of the work myself. Well this helped me immensely I had a couple of problems and instead of posting the questions on the board I spent time on them and figured it out myself. This not only gave me a better sense of achievement but also helped me to understand the stuff better. So by answering newbie questions sometimes you are not helping them as much as if you ignore them. Thanks Ironblayde

"People spend too much time thinking about the past, whatever else it is, its gone"-Mel Gibson, Man Without A Face

Darkmage : ignorance is not a crime, but lack of humility is, when you are a newbie.
Personally I spent most of my studies helping all the people who askd me how to do their job.
I don''t flame newbies, generally, because I assume a lack of knowlefge that doesn''t allow them to understand the inacesibilty of the kind of stuff they talk about. After all, I tell myself, they don''t know, they see this book "Teach yourself this and that in 21 days", and they think that''s it, I am a programmer.
So most of the time I just calm them down by explaining the basic rule, which is basically that you never stop to learn, and you have got to realise from the start the vastness of your ignorance.

The problem is those that are too up their own arses to be humble enough and realise that you can''t just be a genius because you decide so. For those, I think they deserve to be flamed, and I don''t hesitate a minute to send them down the wrong path, so they crash and burn, and open their eyes (hopefully). We are all newbie at some stage, but unfortunately it''s not given to everybody to be a good student.

If you see too much flaming on the boards, I would not be surprised that it''s because newbies get more and more up their arses, bragging too much. If you are scared because veterans flame you, then how did you handle your teachers annoying you when you were a student ??? Sometimes, hardship is necessary to progress.

Peronally, I hate VB because it gives their users a false sense of simplicity. It''s the perfect example of what you shouldn''t do to help people. It doesn''t help them *learn*. It only help them *do* stuff, and they want to do something that is out of their reach, there is only the vastness of their ignorance left ...

I say spank the newbies ! it''s for their own sake !

ahw: I think you''re pissing nessy off with your anti-VB posts.

- DarkMage139
++++++++++++++++
"Shut up and give me the freakin code" -unknown
"Ask and you will be shot" -snes16bit
"Not again!" -SHilbert (upon being assimilated)
"Nazrix is cool." - Nazrix
"You've only seen the beginning" -The Dark Lord of RPGs
"I'm gonna go get high on Squaresoft games" - ILoveNataliePortman

actually, I am not anti VB as such, I am anti llama who think because someone did all the work for you, know they know how to code... that''s quite different. It just happen that IMO, VB is the software that does that the best, it''s productive for experienced programmers, and counter productive for learners ...

but I maintain my opinion, spank the newbies when they say stupid things, that''s the way kids learn anyway ...

You guys must remember the recent thread where someone said the exact same thing as what started off this thread...
I thought that was hilarious, newbies flaming the veterans for flaming the newbies! But now I have moderator powers, and I AM INVINCIBLE! INVINNNCIBLEEE! [ Aahhh, they are defending themselves somehow... ]

Just kidding.

I''ll just keep answering all the questions that get asked...


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~

newbies flaming veterans that treat them bad ? That would be as stupid as students demonstrating against their teachers and school ...
uh wait, that''s exactly what we do in France ... mmm