We could do with being nicer and less patronizing of one another methinks! <3
I should point out that a lot of people have been asking a lot of questions, technical and operational, some interesting and some trivial, and pretty much all of them have been answered fairly directly and politely, including the majority of Joshex's questions.
However, leaving aside Joshex's history for grandiosity, Joshex committed a sin: the gravest sin you can commit in technical circles, and I don't think you or sdrawkcab fully appreciate it, because you may only be looking at the tone of the text. The gravest sin you can possibly commit in technical circles, and its something Joshex will have to learn if he is going to function in them one day, is you never, ever,
ever imply that your time is more valuable than the time of the people who's help you're asking for. Particularly when it comes to doing your own homework, RTFM, and acquiring the context to ask realistic questions. He may say he did no such thing, but that's irrelevant: the text speaks for itself.
When the average player says "I have no idea how any of this works but I'd like to know if we can use Paragon Chat from multiple computers" I answer that question in the spirit it was asked: the person genuinely has no technical knowledge, and doesn't need to know the technical details, but wants to know something about how the software is likely to work for them. But when Joshex says he's going to script up the ski slopes, and he just wants to know how they work and how the data gets sent around and how to get the IP addresses of connected clients, that's different. Giving him the full benefit of the doubt that he's actually going to try to do what he claims he's going to do, we - the technical we - know his very questions imply he doesn't have the requisite knowledge to attempt to do that. Its not even enough to theorycraft it, because all of his assumptions about
everything are wrong. Again, giving him the full benefit of the doubt, the correct thing to do is to point him to the information not that answers his direct questions, because those direct questions don't have direct answers, but to the context information he needs so that when he just even thinks about the problem he's at least thinking about the right problem.
You can either try to learn enough so that you're asking reasonable questions in the first place, or you can drop the pretense of wanting to know things from a technical perspective. But when you say, or even imply, that you're a technical person with all these great ideas, but you just need people to do the trivial stuff like tell you how everything works or explain how to actually make your idea work, that is never going to incite a good response. There are many technical circles, in fact, where it will permanently mark you for life as
one of those.
Thing is, every time it happens, I forgive him these errors. Every time Joshex asks a technical question, I tend to start from scratch and answer the question like I would any other, giving him the full benefit of the doubt with regard to how he intends to use that information. As I would for anyone else. That's not a courtesy most people get in the real world.
Now, if that sometimes comes off as condescending, so be it. I'd be willing to bet even Joshex would prefer I answer his questions the way I currently do, rather than the alternative of ignoring them completely, which is the only other option. But I'm willing to be disproved on that count.
