Andy Maskell

As a relative newbie to Max myself (1 year now and almost entirely self taught), I have found the forum extremely useful as a source of help, ideas and learning material. In return, I have done my best to help others.

However, with many of the requests for help clearly coming from students trying to create projects as part of college or university courses, I have come to realise that in many cases I am just doing somebody else’s homework!

Whilst I have no issue helping them, I am becoming increasingly frustrated with some of them making no effort whatsoever to try things out or learn how Max works and simply end up in despair asking that you “fix” or even “write” their patches for them (no doubt because a deadline looms) after which they disappear without even a word of thanks!

I notice that it’s usually the same people responding to these pleas for help and my profile topics list is filling up with unanswered replies. Have other regular users experienced the same?

As a relative newbie to Max myself (1 year now and almost entirely self taught), I have found the forum extremely useful as a source of help

please-don’t-be-so-lazy!

One sees that all over the place (e.g. programming languages forums), not just here. I used to help if it was clear that the student had tried but when you see things like, “I have to do this by Tuesday and don’t know where to start” and it turns out they had two months for the project, I just sigh and move on.

However, when the question was interesting, I would sometimes try to figure it out just as a means of learning something new myself. No time to do that these days though.

One sees that all over the place (e.g. programming languages forums),  not just here. I used to help if it was clear that the student had tried but when you see things like, “I have to do this by Tuesday and don’t know where to start” and it turns out they had two months for the project, I just sigh and move on.

However, when the question was interesting, I  would sometimes try to figure it out just as a means of learning something new myself. No time to do that these days though.

That’s how I view it too - I can learn stuff just by trying to solve the problem myself and by reading other peoples’ suggestions.

I just find it frustrating that I’m not earning points towards a qualification for doing it!!!! 😂🤣😂

like DHJ said, for me it (answering questions) is also mostly about learning something myself. 

i have never read a manual and my level of discipline to work on something all on my own tends to zero. yet i haven written hundreds of softwares, created hundreds of paintings, and composed a whole bunch of concerts. i founded several companies without making a single dollar, half of them are non profit organisations, others are now run by friends.

during the last 15 years i have spent most of my time offering free legal and psychological consulting for the weaker half of the residents in my area, who could not afford such services otherwise. at the same time i used the experience which i got from there to offer free consulting for members of parliament and sociological research institutes.

some would call it self exploitation to work for free - but they have no idea what have i gained myself doing this. 

it is simply a method, and it is eventually more self-centered than anyone can imagine.

i (mostly^^) dont judge a person or the motives behind his question, all what matters is whether the topic is interesting enough for me to invest 3 minutes. or 3 hours if the question is really good.

however, we shall not interfere in university projects by starting and finishing them at the same time, that is not useful, for nobody. you can either help with programming OR with the concept, but not with both, because then it is your project and not his/hers. :)

on the other hand, university projects are totally useless stuff anyway. why not just create art instead?


like DHJ said, for me it (answering questions) is also mostly about learning something myself. 

i have never read a manual and my level of discipline to work on something all on my own tends to zero. yet i haven written hundreds of softwares, created hundreds of paintings, and composed a whole bunch of concerts. i founded several companies without making a single dollar, half of them are non profit organisations, others are now run by friends.

during the last 15 years i have spent most of my time offering free legal and psychological consulting for the weaker half of the residents in my area, who could not afford such services otherwise.  at the same time i used the experience which i got from there to offer free consulting for members of parliament and sociological research institutes.

some would call it self exploitation to work for free - but they have no idea what have i gained myself doing this. 
it is simply a method, and it is eventually more self-centered than anyone can imagine.

i (mostly^^) dont judge a person or the motives behind his question, all what matters is whether the topic is interesting enough for me to invest 3 minutes. or 3 hours if the question is really good.

however, we shall not interfere in university projects by starting and finishing them at the same time, that is not useful, for nobody. you can either help with programming OR with the concept, but not with both, because then it is your project and not his/hers. :)

on the other hand, university projects are totally useless stuff anyway. why not just create art instead?


It a bit like a “project” @Roman and I had a look at recently. It’s actually quite interesting in my view and embodies lots of interesting concepts that I’ve learnt from. And credit to the programmer for making a good start.

However, having created a plate of spaghetti with disorganised blocks of code and connections running in every direction linking things together, the user was asking for help to tie all the bits together into a working process. I asked them to tidy it up if they seriously wanted help but all I got back was the same plate of spaghetti with a few comments added.

In the end I spent an hour reorganising it myself! Having done that I’ve provided loads of ideas and code snippets they could use to finish the project but…….

I’m beginning to see a pattern - the serious users enter a dialogue; the students just vanish!

that is a new tendency in the last few years and that is because people ask their question in telegram, discourse, facebook, reddit and the forums in parallel and then forget about it. :)

regarding the "obama" patch, i looked at it in different way. 

my main "issue" was that he was asking on another layer than what most programmers would stay. i dont want to know the story behind it, but he needs to start looking at patches and objects apart from his project. which is difficult in the beginning. 

i am pretty much convinced that he already had help making this patch., if you know what i mean. 

otoh, there are no wrong questions; if he didnt understand them, our answers were not ideal.


that is a new tendency in the last few years and that is because people ask their question in telegram, discourse, facebook, reddit and the forums in parallel and then forget about it. :)

regarding the "obama" patch, i looked at it in different way. 
my main "issue" was that he was asking on another layer than what most programmers would stay. i dont want to know the story behind it, but he needs to start looking at patches and objects apart from his project. which is difficult in the beginning. 
i am pretty much convinced that he already had help making this patch., if you know what i mean. 
otoh, there are no wrong questions; if he didnt understand them, our answers were not ideal.


I suppose I was originally brought up on Fortran and machine code on punch cards (yes, I'm that old!!!). One card in the wrong order or left out and your program was stuffed. Plus, it took time between punching all the cards, loading them in the card reader, waiting for your turn in the queue for your program to be run and then waiting for the results to come out of the line printer (as well as finding what was yours in the huge stacks of paper). It taught me a degree of discipline in structuring how your program ran as otherwise it could be impossible to debug. And we won't mention what happens when you accidentally dropped all the cards on the floor!

I couldn't make head nor tail of that patch until I untangled the spaghetti and tidied it up. Then it became immediately obvious how it was supposed to run! Did you take a look at what I did?

Pity, because it was actually a really good project!

I suppose I was  originally brought up on Fortran and machine code on punch cards (yes, I'm that old!!!). One card in the wrong order or left out and your program was stuffed. Plus, it took time between punching all the cards, loading them in the card reader, waiting for your turn in the queue for your program to be run and then waiting for the results to come out of the line printer (as well as finding what was yours in the huge stacks of paper). It taught me a degree of discipline in structuring how your program ran as otherwise it could be impossible to debug. And we won't mention what happens when you accidentally dropped all the cards on the floor!

Please don’t be so darned lazy!