Useless whinging about rude/clueless requests for help...

I get those -- and some that are stated much better.

I think the worst ones are the same people who post the same stuff to newsgroups, and who perhaps don't have a clue about the difference between email and a newsgroup posting.

The best of them make me think, and I answer them. Often I'll suggest that the correspondent post the question on a newsgroup so that _you_ can fill in any gaps where _I_ left stuff out...

As a matter of policy I no longer waste time answering such questions. If I am in a particularly good mood I will send a one-liner saying "post in comp.arch.embedded" - if it does appear there, I may or may not answer.

I typically use a template with a polite answer that the cost of this question is such and such.

VLV

I do also get detailed questions about topics where I have particular knowledge. If it's something which is not likely to be of interest to anybody else, I usually answer them. For reasoably researched questions of more general interest I usually suggest that they post to the appropriate usenet group or mailing list (which is obviously where they found my name).

Of course private consultation is always available for a fee. ;)

That's one of the reasons I prefer to answer questions in a public forum -- if I'm wrong, someobody is there to correct me.

I think what has to be said is that if they're meant to be engineers then they will have that *spark* and *snap* to engineer.

Most of what I've learnt has taken years, of sometimes expense, and alot of time. For the most part I'm self sufficient.

What maybe annoys me (and certainly has in the IT sector) is that I'm good. Yes, I make mistakes now and then and have dropped a few clangers. Yet my market, has become so highly competitive. And it's because of like this who frankly know bugger all, yet have the mickey mouse paper qualifications.

They don't actually know anything. God knows what they would be doing with their paper qualifications in the event of a nuclear war. They certainly wouldn't be building RF transmitters and wind turbines from old car alternators.

My view is that these OPs aren't engineers. And they shouldn't be either. They're just a product of this easy-get-qualifications-quick world we live in.

"Become an embedded software developer in 1-week, earn $$$'s."

Sod em. Unless they stand out, or their posts cover relatively sensible topics which can't be researched in a matter of hours by searching. Sod em.

And I never thought I'd take that approach with people. But I'd be helping them all the time; to get their 1-week qualifications. And with them becoming competition.

Look at my mail address here. It's deliberate. Out of necessity.

Is this an accurate summarization of your question?:

What part of the human psyche thinks that it is acceptable to ask a total stranger a vague question and expect an immediate detailed answer ?

I say we corner one, interrogate, and make'em cry.

Thomas

...snip...

I'm glad you feel better. I know what you mean, I get them too. They are not always quite so rude, but it can be odd that they write such vague descriptions and often are asking for code!

Once I was asked rather politely about 1-wire driver code. I ended up providing it just because I got tired of thinking that evey snippit of code written needs to be considered a precious gem and every penny needs to be extracted from it.

It is not infrequent that I reply to these messages with some amount of help. But I try to distinguish the ones that seem to be looking for someone to do their homework rather than actual requests for help.

I am also on the other end of these requests at times. Of course I normally do that here or in a Yahoo group, not by direct email. When I am starting out in a new area, I like to get some helpful advice on the best places to read rather than to just start reading data sheets and searching groups. But I guess you would prefer that to direct emails.

Right now I am trying to come up the learning curve on the ARM9/11 processors so that I know them as well as I know the ARM7 parts. Not so much the details of the instruction sets, etc; but more about what is out there and what they are good for. I may prepare an ARM9/11 compilation like the ARM7 MCU data I put up at

This is not the only group where clueless engineers and/or students from India, China and neighboring countries are asking us to do their homeworks / study projects.

Is the tuition so bad that the students do not have the necessary knowledge and skills to be able to complete the tasks themselves?

I just wonder whether they understand what it means for them after the studies. Maybe we can regard this phenomenon as limiting the future competition from those countries ...

I suppose there would be some level self-serving motivation to actually do their homework for them so that they can graduate without learning to do anything useful. Presumably they won't be in the Engineering job market for long.

"Grant Edwards" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

I get most of such requests from the U.S ;-) But they seems to be real engineers facing real troubles. At least they mostly ask me questions for which I need to understand the answer anyway.

I am working on project using . I have . Error message below: $ bash: /usr/local/arm/gnuarm-4.0.2/bin/arm-elf-gcc: cannot execute binary file Plz help me. Plz send me urgently on how to run Linux GNUARM on my OpenSuse 10.1 system ;-)

Worse is when you get headhunters assuming you're passionately interested in working in an area you mentioned in passing in one post five years ago ;)

The response then is usually *very* short.

pete

Professor has set me halting problem solving. Plz 2 b helping. thx.

pete

Hey, he included an error message, so that's an order-of magnitude more specific that the e-mails I was talking about.

Again, how to run GNUARM (whatever that is) on an OpenSuse 10.1 system. A very specific, technical question. A question that can be answered (even it's not quite in the right forum or worded very politely).

The emails I'm talking about are more like:

I am to design a project using ARM processor. Please tell me how to start. Send what steps I need to do.

And that's _it_.

how about this? No cable ties needed

martin

I find providing a little information the worst thing to do, once you start spoon feeding then the emails come in faster.

My standard response to the question 'how I can get Linux on an 8051, plz send me src code' when it is really 'urgent', and from somebody purporting to have a 'masters in embedded engineering' is to reply saying that all the answers you need are on one of the following two links:

Occasionally, if I type the same question that has been asked to me into Google and the first link it comes up with is a direct and simple answer, I simply shortcut the above and reply with the Google search URL and nothing else. Its amazing how many masters of embedded engineering have no clue how to use a search engine.

If I'm in a particularly bad mood, and the question is full of u r, and plz and such I will write a full response but leave out all the vowels.

Having said that I am always happy to provide help to considered questions where the author has made a bit of effort on their own first. We all have to start somewhere, but please make an effort!

Just couldn't resist ...

I remember:

I have been told by my manager I need to design a GSM/GPRS radio basestation. Anyone got any VHDL code they can share?

... snip rant ...

A worthwhile rant. It's existance may avoid some of those clueless incompetents. The worst are the idiots who cc the newsgroup and you, combined with foolish geek speek abbreviations and mispunctuation. Then they run it all into one massive paragraph challenged blob.

... snip ...

The clue challenged syndrome is not limited to India, China, and neighbors by any means. It is most prevalent in the young who have just discovered Usenet.