[zeromq-dev] Note on help in IRC [constructive criticism, I hope]

[Pieter Hintjens]

Raising an issue is good. Sending us a patch is better. By that, I
mean, why not squat on the IRC channel, spend some months there
reading everything, and try to answer other peoples' questions when
you can, and show how to be polite and patient... it is after all an
open space for anyone to talk, not run by anyone in particular, not
moderated, and it's as good or bad as we make it, together.

I used to spend a lot of time on the IRC channel, however, my days got shorter.

If you think there are important things that the man pages or the
Guide skip, or don't explain well, help us fix that.

It's always interesting to stumble, or watch others stumble, to learn
what aspects aren't clear, could be simpler, or better designed or
documented.



On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 4:45 PM, Jonas Thiem <jonasthiem at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'd like to point out a highly subjective help experience on IRC.
>
> I had a simple ROUTER/DEALER test case and tried to trim it down to
> the essential things to make it easy for people to point out my
> mistake. However, I messed up the following things:
> 1. I used a thread for the server, but I forgot to call .start() on the instance
> 2. I missed the fact from the zmq_socket api reference that ROUTER
> needs to deal with the delimiters themselves (I wrongly assumed this
> would be some detail handled inside pyzmq)
>
> The reaction was the following:
> 1. I was sent away and told to return once I read the whole ZMQ guide
> 2. I should learn Python first
>
> People miss things in the manual, and I'd like to point out this is
> probably not the best way to handle help requests. When I tried to
> diplomatically point that out in the channel (at least I hope I did, I
> tried to), I was told I was "worth an ignore".
>
> Sorry if I annoyed people on IRC. It really wasn't my intention. But I
> hope it is seful to you if I note down here that from my subjective
> point of view, the response wasn't that amazing either.
>
> Regards,
> Jonas Thiem
>
> PS: If you think I am an idiot and annoying, I am very sorry. Please
> try to ignore this message and I hope I won't bother you further. Just
> trying to help improve the support response - if the fault is with me,
> then I apologize.
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