On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 5:12 AM, Jan E. <lis= ts@ruby-forum.com> wrote:

Josh Cheek wrote in post #1058231:

> On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:51 AM, Thought M. <lists@ruby-forum.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Sorry, I just didn't think is was a big deal to ask a question= about my
>
> response I received.
>>
>>
> Don't worry about it, some people don't remember what it's= like to be
> new.

No, this has nothing to do with being new. It's a matter of using= the
right source for certain information.

Sure, you can always hope for someone that will explain everything step
by step. And if you actually find a "personal tutor", great! But = you
should also know where to find things on your own, as it will save you
and others a lot of time.

Things like the "hash bang line" or Linux file properties are
well-documented basics. It's a matter of seconds to find the right
Wikipedia article and excellent tutorials. So why post the question in a forum and wait for somebody else to do the work?

I'd rather use the forum *after* having done some research on my own. Then you actually get to the interesting points.

--
Posted via http://= www.ruby-forum.com/.

Sure, b= ut when you're new, the set of things you know is so large that it is m= uch more difficult to find specific pieces of information. When you're = new, you might not know a pund sign is called a hash, that an exclamation i= s called a bang. You might not realize it's handled by the OS instead o= f some part of Ruby. You might not know that it isn't just some comment= with special meaning in the same way that Foo#bar is.

When you ha= ve no context, figuring out what to google for is much more difficult, and = when you do find an explanation, it may not make sense because it isn't= congruent with the premises in your head. If he had found something explai= ning it, he might have thought it was talking about something else, because= it's talking about executable *nix programs, and maybe he thought it w= as just a comment. And if he did think it was a comment, what would he goog= le for? "ruby comment exclamation" ? The results aren't as he= lpful as the query you recommended, but even the query itself assumes knowl= edge that is elusive to beginners.