FAQ

From: Giao H Phan (gphan@sas.upenn.edu)
Date: 06/04/95


> 	If you think that this is "give all the answers away" then you're
> against the sharing of knowlegment(sp?) among the scientists, researchers
> etc.

what i am against is shoving the answers down the throats of everyone on 
the list. i dont care what you guys put in the FAQ, i'll even help out 
with it, but i think it should be used as a last resort, and it should 
not be posted to the list. email will serve it's purpose quite well.

> 	The idea of the "basic code upgrade FAQ" is to avoid the newbie
> imp waste his time with some annoying things that others already found
> the best solution for. Even if it isn't the best solution, the newbie
> imp can look to the solution shown and disagree with it.

waste his time? that time wasting is for some people the whole point of 
learning to code. noone can read the entire mud code and learn how to 
program, but they sure can waste some time trying to write a spell, and 
learn that way. my point is, it should be the decision of the pimp who 
has a problem to begin with.

> > we aren't here to breast feed newbie C coders. we aren't here to ease the 
> > transition from DOS batch files to circle code. or are we?

> 	All right...When you got the MUD code you read it completely in one
> night, understood all at first and never had any doubt when you tried to
> change something. The MUD IS NOT a simple "hello world" program. It is really
> intrincated and you know it. Even an experienced programmer will take some
> time to "get in" the code.

of course. my point eggsacly. now do you really think adding another 20 
lines to the pot will help him? inserting code is a mindless activity. 
inserting 100 levels by following a comprehensive list of locations and 
the code to go there will NOT help joe-newbie-imp become a better coder. 
the only way to learn is to totally immerse yerself in the code, and 
actually work shit out for yourself. hell, i can cut and paste info from 
a million science journals into one paper, that dont mean i am some sorta 
genius on the subject. again, the only way to learn is to do it yerself, 
write it yourself, see why it works for yourself. make it work for yourself.
the rest of this is along the same lines...

-dert



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