Robert Smits wrote:
On December 21, 2009 05:28:03 am wrote:
On Sunday, 2009-12-20 at 23:41 -0800, Robert Smits wrote:
Is there a straigtforward guide to setting up CUPS in an opensuse 11.0 environment that I can follow? Simply use YaST, let it do the job for you.
-- Cheers, Helpful Poster
Thanks for the reply, Helpful Poster. I appreciate that you took the time to make a suggestion.
This brings me, however, to make a point about replies to requests for help. (And to be clear, this is not aimed at the helpful poster, because I'm guilty of doing it as well.)
Our habit of making what seem to be simple answers to simple questions are not perceived as simple answers. To many readers, they either seem completely dismissive - as in go read the f$%^&ing manual, or are so lacking in practical how do I do it terms that the poster simply mutters under their breath about damned Linux geeks and goes back to the dark side.
And yes, I appreciate it that some posters don't read the manual, but that isn't the point.
At the very least, we need to describe the actions in much clearer terms than the example above.
Telling me to go to YAST/Hardware/Printer and that I can set up shared printing there is ever so much more helpful.
Let's be nice to each other.
"It's in yast" is called a pointer. It's possible you didn't know there was a configurator front end in there, so you need to be told that much. But y You get pointers for free. You have to pay for time consuming hand-holding. Consider also, if/when you _do_ get a lot of time consuming help for free from someone, apparently their time is worth little, which implies something about their help. The exception is occasionally if the question is good (ie: it exposes something the generally available docs do not address well enough) then someone may write a time consuming and thorough answer for free, because they are not really answering you because for some reason your personal success at getting your printer to print is important to them, but writing something that can be googled up and referred to by anyone else with the same question later. If you get an answer "read the menual" it's generally because the answer has already been written, far better and more thoroughly and correctly than any off the cuff quick reply. It's offensive and selfish and ignorant to expect someone who has spent a lot of time learning things, to sit there and hand write out the same answer that already has been written. Anything I or someone else says, when good documentation exists, would be less correct than the documentation. What? the manual for foo is long and complicated? Too Bad! Read it and know, or don't and live without, or pay someone else to do it for you. There are no quick, easy, yet correct answers to complex problems or systems. The extra personal touch, the reason for mail lists and newsgroups and web forums, is to help those who are at least trying to help themselves. You read the manual, and you have some _specific_ question about part of it. No an open ended "tell me how to do it". Documentation is of course as subject to fault as the programs they describe, but you still have to start from the assumption that docs exist and are correct and complete, and only make other people work for you _after_ you've exhausted the docs. And if the answer you get is a pointer, go in the direction pointed yourself, or at least as far as you can. Do not expect to be carried there. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org