brendan mccloskey

Should there be a sticky, or a new tab, called "prefabs/externals for the terminally lazy"?

brendan-awoke-in-a-foul-mood-today

They're called "abstractions," Brendan. I know what you mean.... :-)

all of us need to do better care of maxobjects.com.

I'm of two minds about this. I think that there is a class of people who need to see success in their first-ish project to gain the confidence to move forward with Max. I also think that there are people who are lazy and want to take shortcuts. Telling them apart is usually easy, but not always. If only all schools were on the semester, instead of the quarter (and I shouldn't even mention the trimester system.)

One of my pet peeves is people who start a thread with a question, get a few replies and never indicate whether any of the replies answered their question, much less thanking the people who spent time answering.

Furthermore, all query threads should end with:

There are a few posters, appearing in the last 6 months, whose posts I no longer bother to read. I don't use those "we'll-write-your-PhD-thesis-for-you.com" websites. Why should I help turn this site into "we'll-do-your-project-for-ungrateful-you.com"

I know how you feel though and have to agree. Although, I have to admit that when I was a n00b here on the forums I was guilty (and occasionally still am) of not replaying to answers with a thanks. So let me say to everyone I might have miffed in the past "SORRY!!" This is what living in Canada does to you, you live in a perpetual state of being sorry ;)

All kidding aside, "we'll-do-your-project-for-ungrateful-you.com" is annoying. What I started doing is: if I don't recognize the name of the poster (I have been around long enough that I recognize a ton a people - need to get a life!!) and the questions seems to be an assignment type thing, I will give a short list of objects they should research and offer more help once they have a more focused question and show me a patch with what they tried. This weeds out the "do-my-assignment-for-me" type people but allows the "I-am-really-lost-and-really-need-some-basic-help" type people to move forward and get some help. It's not always easy to differentiate between those two.

Oh, and did I say that I was sorry yet? EH?

wow, Brendan is in a foul mood today ;)
I know how you feel though and have to agree. Although, I have to admit that when I was a n00b here on the forums I was guilty (and occasionally still am) of not replaying to answers with a thanks. So let me say to everyone I might have miffed in the past "SORRY!!" This is what living in Canada does to you, you live in a perpetual state of being sorry ;)

Canada is my Shangri-La (one day I will be there!); living in N.Ireland = perpetual state of guilt!

Anyhoo, like many contributors I also use this forum for several reasons:

3. trawl, browse and comment. Unnecessarily (through ennui).

Therefore I tend to get a little snotty when I encounter lazy posters; but, like you, I am learning to discriminate. There is very probably a learning/experience curve here, starting with n00bish eagerness and naivety, thence to misplaced superiority, leading ultimately to Zen-like guru-ness (?). I'm in the middle I guess.

Hey MIB
Canada is my Shangri-La (one day I will be there!); living in N.Ireland = perpetual state of guilt!

1. trawl, browse and learn. Silently;
2. trawl, browse and help. Noisely.
3. trawl, browse and comment. Unnecessarily (through ennui).

Brendan awoke in a foul mood today