[SGVLUG] Linux and then SCO !

[David Lawyer]

On Wed, Aug 31, 2005 at 09:32:36AM -0700, Emerson, Tom wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > Behalf Of David Lawyer
> > 
> > On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 08:00:09AM -0700, Tom Emerson wrote:
> > > 
> > > And to follow on Dustin's comment about learning to ask a 
> > good question, you 
> > > might find this link to be enlightening:
> > > 
> > >      http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
> > 
> > I didn't think this was very good.  The author is just too dogmatic.
> 
> Do you have a better set of guidelines?  I'll agree, parts of this
> are a bit over-the-top, and there are a few cheap shots taken, but
> the point of the post is still valid -- "here's how to ask a
> question in a way that is likely to be answered in a civil and swift
> manner"

One can just use, say Google.  Then one learns by trial and error plus
common sense.  Common sense tells one that it makes people who helped
you feel good about it if you say thanks to them.  A programmer will
soon find out the difficulties of examining source code to find out
what a program does (or to find a bug).  The author suggested that
programmers should look at source code but I think that this should be
done only as a last resort (unless one wants to maintain their skills
in reading source code, including understanding the hardware).

So I think that just using trial and error may be the best method.  A
major problem is selecting search terms.  One soon discovers that
searching on a generalized error message (minus numbers unique to your
situation, like tty2) works well.

			David Lawyer