From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Butthead
Date: 23 Dec 1992 11:17:40 GMT
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Distribution: world
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <1992Dec23.043743.5939@seq.uncwil.edu>, session@seq.uncwil.edu (Zack C. Sessions) writes:
>carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:
>
>>I was flamed in response to some of my early questions,
>
>Is that why you seem to like to flame people who now post similar types
>of obviously "early questions"?

Sort of.  If you take a look at my responses to various questions in this
newsgroup, I think you'll find that I don't flame anybody who demonstrates
an interest in learning how to deal with VMS.  I will, however, flame anybody
who:
	1)  Gets a detailed error message from VMS, then decides to ignore it
	    when he posts his question to INFO-VMS/COMP.OS.VMS (questions of
	    the form, "My program crashed, and spat out a whole screenful of
	    stuff;  why did it crash [and, of course, the querant doesn't think
	    that it's worth including ANY of that `Whole screenful of stuff'])
	2)  Asks a question that can be answered via the HELP facility;
	3)  Asks a question that's just been answered in this newsgroup; or
	4)  Asks a question, then ignores the answer's he's given (e.g.,
	    questions of the form (and, yes, I *AM* (picking on Sabry here):
		1:  When I increase the size of this array, my program takes 10
		    times as long to run 
		2:  (Answer): You're incurring lots of page faults.  You need to
		    increase the size of the working set;
		3:  Please comment on this SYSUAF entry for DEFAULT (in which
		    the working set it STILL way too low)
I don't flame because I was flamed.  However, I *DO* recognize that there might
have been a good reason for my having been flamed (an attitude that's very much
lacking in the current crop of newbies;  as far as they [and their apologists]
are concerned, they MUST know what they're doing;  if their more experienced
colleagues [from whom they want information] disagree, it must be the more
experienced people [not the newbies] who are mistaken!

I commend to you a couple of Science Fiction stories:  "The Marching Morons,"
by Cyril M. Kornbluth, and "The Little Black Bag," by Algis Budrys (I'm not at
all sure of the authors in either case, but the titles are correct).  Both are
based on the assumption that we let standards slide.  That we acept someone who
doesn't give a damn about understanding what he's doing take credit for what he
does (i.e., instead of using INFO-VAX to learn about managing a VMS system [and
what the hell did you think the "INFO" meant?], using INFO-VAX to do the system
management FOR him).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.