Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] RANT ALERT: WTF Is wrong with you people?

[Jeff Brower]

Marcus-

Your sentiments are understandable.  I know the feeling.  But please allow me 
to give an a different perspective.

I've posted for years (since 1999) 1000s of times on DSP, audio, speech, MATLAB 
and FPGA groups -- on voluntary basis,
because I want to.  I can't count the number of times I've answered totally 
clueless newbie posts, mostly by students
or start-up wannabe's.  I've developed my own methodology to minimize my time 
and "qualify" the newb (ask a couple of
quick questions about their problem, see if they respond, see if they're 
willing to follow instructions, do some debug
work, etc).

Did I waste my time?  Yes in many cases.  But in other those newbs did good.  
They were persistent, followed advice,
started getting results... sometimes I eventually got to see the "It Works!" 
post with thanks to all the group members
who helped them -- which never fails to remind me of my own excitement so many 
years ago when I studied engineering in
school and got my first design job.  You can tell who will become the real 
engineers, the ones who enjoy the process,
who are willing to fight the bug in hand-to-hand combat, the ones who reply at 
2:00 a.m. because they're still in the
lab duking it out... I like to believe that through a group / collaborative 
effort, they came in as newbs and then
gained confidence and maybe even some validation of their career choice.

Yes I know such positive results are a minority of the posts you're thinking 
about.  And yes it takes patience and can
be exasperating, but isn't that generally true of raising kids?  They have to 
learn the hard way, and someone has to
help them, before they can join the community and make their own contributions. 
 For me overall, the good has
outweighed the bad and I don't think my time has been wasted.

-Jeff

> I've noticed a disquieting, nay, alarming, trend on this mailing list in the 
> last year or so.
>
> Software Defined Radio has become "cool", it has become the "chic" thing to 
> do in graduate school, or
>   as the foundation for the start up of a new business.  Everybody wants
> to do it.
>
> People get on to this list, empty vessels that they are, and determine that 
> they can become "filled up".
>
> Now, when I say "empty vessel", I'm talking about the poly-dimensionally 
> clueless here.  One would expect,
>   given the "newness" of SDR, that the preponderance of persons on this
> mailing list would be relatively
>   experienced persons in a related engineering discipline--software,
> embedded systems, real-time programming,
>   and of course *radio*.  It would be reasonable to expect a list like
> this to offer support to experienced folks
>   who are mostly self-starters, become familiar with Gnu Radio and SDR,
> to get a few tips here and there
>   about things specifically related to Gnu Radio, publish bugs and
> "oddnesses", etc.
>
> But what has happened is that large numbers of people without *any* 
> experience in *any* of the related
>   disciplines come here, expecting a "free" substitute for a 4-year
> engineering degree (or equivalent).
>   They pin the success/failure of their project (assigned by their
> academic advisor, or their manager
>   in commercial situations) on the ability of this list to provide what
> amounts to free consulting and training.
>
> The people on this list who are providing assistance are doing so *as 
> volunteers*.  They don't owe anybody
>   anything here.  It's a community effort, and the abuse of the
> good-will of this community is harmful to
>   the community as a whole.   I'm not targetting anybody in particular.
> You know who you are.  Knock it off.
>
>
> Now, does anybody know where the power switch on my computer is?    :-)
>
>
>
> --
> Marcus Leech
> Principal Investigator
> Shirleys Bay Radio Astronomy Consortium
> http://www.sbrac.org