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Basically, if the poster has shown some initiative and done some research themselves, I am happy to help, otherwise they get a nice link to www.lmgtfy.com :P

Yeah I noticed that! Hilarious - so much so, I translated lmgtfy into my native language so I could 'annoy the annoying'. Probably the most useful bit of translation I've done to date - thanks Will! :icon_cheesygrin:

Does the motive for starting a thread make a difference to the help that should be offered? I'm a hobbyist, so any help passed in my direction will not make me any money or help me pass any examinations.

No, your motive should not be a factor -- unless the motive is for someone else to write the program for you. Whether a student, hobbyist, or professional, IMO you should ask an appropriate question, and give enough detail so someone can point you in the proper direction. We are not a coding service, and it bothers me when someone hands out code willy-nilly. If you are asking a question, you are willing to learn. If you aren't willing to learn, there are a lot of other sites where you can have someone write your code for you -- for a price (and there should be a price).

Am I (attempts at solving the problem myself aside) more or less deserving of help than somebody with a critical interest (e.g. somebody in the IT business or a student)? Is this even relevant - should help be provided piecemeal (even cryptically) regardless of the motive?

Irrelevant.

[oops]duplicate post[/oops]

I am a student myself (technically.. on a (multiple) gap year).

I have no problem helping people, regardless of what their reason for asking.

However, if I see a post with a few lines of text detailing a vague idea of what they want, I am less likely to want to try to assist compared to a post where the OP has got some description of what they want, their current code and what the problem is.

Basically, if the poster has shown some initiative and done some research themselves, I am happy to help, otherwise they get a nice link to www.lmgtfy.com :P

and the always popular if slightly bad taste justf**kinggoogleit.com the url probably wont work, the expected f word removed by the bad words processor

Given that Dani is pretty busy these days, I've created a new announcement in the Web Development section for the time being.

As far as the entire 'homework help' debate is concerned, I personally feel that the ones who lose out the most when posting ready solutions are the OP and the one who has posted the solution. I've been posting on site for 3+ years and have learnt to differentiate between lazy homework requests and genuine efforts put in by the OP. Helping someone arrive at a solution by guiding them takes much more effort and patience than posting code that solves the question at hand IMO.

The entire 'teach a man to fish' v/s the 'here ya go kiddo' debate in the end boils down to ones understanding/interpretation of the 'Homework help' rule though I'm personally in favour of the former.

Sorry I'm so late to the convo. I saw the announcement sos, cool :) Are there really a significant number of hw questions in PHP though???

huge numbers of homework questions
in most forums

*sigh* I wish I could have taken PHP in college!

*sigh* I wish I could have taken PHP in college!

Aww come on, you're not that old!

I graduated high school a decade ago! :)

I graduated high school,
back when you caught the 7:30 dinosaur

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