On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, John Meacham wrote:
One of the things I notice happens a lot on the lists is that it is very difficult to answer questions without knowing the background of the person asking it.
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Perhaps we as a community need to avoid the urge (it is hard to resist) to give esoteric answers unless specifically asked for and veterans will have to try not to be too offended if someone mistakes their obscure implementation question for a confused beginning one on occasion.
I have to admit I've more than once had to supress the urge to PM something like "STFU" to someone in #haskell while I'm explaining something to a newbie because they're all unsafePerformIO and arrows and other confusing stuff. It's even worse when answering questions like "doesn't the IO monad make the language impure still?", although that's not such a problem in email because at least I can get through my own explanation without interruption. It's worth noting that sometimes the obscure question's theory-related rather than implementation. -- flippa@flippac.org Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire. Most of the time you just get burnt worse though.