Beginner Opinion

I was trying to suggest to someone the best way to learn certain programming and/or use them. I suggested the best way other than books, for instant message, are sites with a Knowledge base and message boards. I suggested this one and a few others. But then I told him that I wasn't sure if this site was good for beginners because of response I get from other people I've suggested the site. They feel people are willing to help newbies but others are not. There are some who don't understand that beginners do not ask specific questions because they don't know to. They ask more broad and general questions.

Will give you an example of a question I asked. I majored in computer science in college, I have programming experience, and I have web design experiemce. If I did not have it, I doubt I could have gotten accomplished.

I was interested in putting a chat room on my site. A beginner might just ask " how do I put a chatroom on the site" Me being experience, I asked " do you know of any good php chatroom scripts.

People were able to answer my question, but there are many who seem to have a attitude toward general questions like the ones the beginner would ask. I don't see why. It's a fairly simple question to ask if you are willing to explain 1 or 2 concepts to a person.

I think this boils down to a point of tolerance. Vague questions are normally tollerated to a point, especially someone who has not been a member of this board for very long, but that goes away with time. A whole different attidute holds true to those who have been here for a while. Especially those who come to the php board which has a couple of well thought out stickies which both provied a FAQ and how to ask questions. There is also a link in my signature that is very good reading on this very topic.
The point is that people expect a person to try, learn and grow if they plan on doing just about anything covered by these forums. You can not do much of this without being prepared and it gets frowned upon here to do less than you can to solve thier own problem before asking for help from the community. Things have calmed down quite a bit from the past, there has been quite stern flamings for less.

There are about 3 other sites that are as highly active as this one and have php sections as this one does. There are 2 other people doing my site with me. I remember when they first wanted to add a chat room to the site. They didn't ask me at first. They had been on many sites trying to find out and no one seem to even be able to point them in the right direction. Then they asked me and I simply said

There are basically two reliable ways to go
1. Client-Server Based
2. And Web-based chats

I said for number one you have to either install chat software on a server, a host that will let you upload and run stuff, or a place that will let you run it through thier site/server.

I said for number two you can either make one yourself with tables. frames, text files; sometimes your host provides you with one, or you can try to find one that uses something like php and something called a database.

I mean I went ahead and found a chat engine and changed the database queries to match the stuff for our site, but it was someone other than my own colleauges asking, I think what I told them would have been enough for them to get started, to ask more questions, or get more specifc with thier questions

Somone people won't even do that much. They are likely not to even reply to threads that look like something a newbie would ask or someone who doesn't even know where to start.

They had been looking for over 2 months and when they finally found one they didn't know why it had it's own login and registration. I had to explain to them( in wods they could understand) how i changed the query details.

I probably explained completely how to do it in about 10 min. I don't understand why they were on the net 2 months searching for this simple answer, and I know they've been on this site before because I'm under thier username right now.

I might want to check out those last 2 links.

Not everyone can convey what they are needing efficiently enough to get the point across and some can't or won't understand the advise that is given.

I think the explination I gave of thier being basically two methods was enough for anyone to understand. Also, they might not convey it efficiently, but someone can at least say "enter this or that" in a search on goole. At least give people somewhere to start.

You might be surprised.
The most common thing I have seen as far as the google comments is the person couldn't figure out what words to use to search with google or this forum's search feature.

I am not surprised at all. I tell people everyday that it's not as easy to find things on the net as they make it seem. WHen you use a search you really have to know how to use it properly. And you often have to know enugh specifics to do a search on what you REALLY want. That what I meant about google. Someone who knows could give a lil advice about what words to search with.