Discuss Asking For Help? in the Python Programming forum on Dev Shed. Asking For Help? Python Programming forum discussing coding techniques, tips and tricks, and Zope related information. Python was designed from the ground up to be a completely object-oriented programming language.
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Asking For Help?
Here are some ideas for getting help fast:
Search the forums for key words (e.g. cgi, thread, py2exe, Tkinter). Maybe the question was asked before.
Make the Title describe the problem.
If you post code - use the code block # button on the form to preserve the layout. Indentation is critical. Experiment with the preview button!
If the code is big (more than a screen) then attach it as a zip.
If it is unusual, mention your configuration. (Like you are using Python version 1.5 on an a Amiga 500 with 4Mb memory). It is nice to know and can be useful.
Generally people don't like being asked to do someone's homework assignment Particularly when the person has not done any research.
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I cant stress enough how important the use of code tags are when posting code! Especially here since Python uses white space to define the beginning and end of code blocks.
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Also, don't just post up code and say "this doesn't work". This does not give enough enough information. You also need to state:
* what you expect the code to do.
* what the code actually does. If it throws an exception then give the traceback, or the last few lines if it is a long one. If it prints a result that you did not expect then say what it is. If you expected the answer 42 and it gave you 24 then say so, since without that information it would be virtually impossible for someone else to help.
* some example data, if applicable. e.g. if your code iterates over a list then give a short example list that causes it to fail.
* Try to create a minimal example that shows the failure. cutting and pasting hundreds of lines of code and data can be as unhelpful as posting not enough.
It is also often helpful to give some context information - what is the overall problem that this code is trying to solve? Often someone will be able to point out a better way of doing it, rather than fix low level problems with the code.
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Hers is some more advice on asking good questions:
1) assume someone has already asked the question in the past and got the perfect answer. devise a search query that will find that thread.
2) do the search - there is a good chance that it will succeed, in which case you have no need to post the question at all.
3) if the search fails, then post your question. In the title of the post include the search terms that you previously came up with. This will ensure that the title is relevant to the question so casual browsers of the forum will know whether it is something they can answer. It will also make it easy for future users with the same question to find the thread.
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As mentioned above - please post your code in CODE tags or HIGHLIGHT tags as this makes it easier for us to help you.
Code Tag Use:
You type:
[code]
# your code goes here...
for i in range( 0, 1 ):
print i
[/code]
It shows up like this:
Code:
# your code goes here...
for i in range( 0, 1 ):
print i
Highlighting Code Tags:
If you want to get really cool looking code, use the HIGHLIGHT tags:
[highlight=python]
# your code goes here...
for i in range( 0, 1 ):
print i
[/highlight]
outputs this:
python Code:
Original
- python Code
# your code goes here...
for i inrange(0, 1):
print i
Also - keep this in mind:
Quote:
Originally Posted by jharnois
Explain your problem instead of asking how to do what you decided was the solution.
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You can indeed place the steel lids from jam and sauce jars in your household recycling bin.
Please just make sure they are clean and dry.
You can put other steel items in aswell such as food tins,
biscuit tins and aerosol cans (just make sure they are empty and the lids are
offgeneric printer ink