Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Think about Loose Coupling
 
PerlMonks  

Re: why a nodelet can be kept agains author wish?

by greenFox (Vicar)
on Jul 13, 2002 at 02:53 UTC ( [id://181436]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to why a nodelet can be kept agains author wish?

Just to add to what Tye said so well- the mistake that one person makes will usually be thought of by a number of the other readers who havn't posted, they can learn from seeing why your solution was wrong. I have noticed good instructors often will start a training session with something like "don't be afraid to ask questions, the chances are every-one else is thinking it as well".

--
Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is. -Margaret Mitchell

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re(2): why a nodelet can be kept agains author wish?
by FoxtrotUniform (Prior) on Jul 13, 2002 at 03:21 UTC
      I have noticed good instructors often will start a training session with something like "don't be afraid to ask questions, the chances are every-one else is thinking it as well".

    I've taught a number of undergraduate programming labs (not quite what you're talking about, but I think close enough). These labs have had a lecture component (I stand in front of three rows of computers and talk at the students for half an hour or so) and a "work" component (students work for two and a half hours while I go around answering questions). It's very difficult to get people to ask questions in front of a crowd, mostly (I believe) because it's scary to run the risk of being wrong in front of your peers. (It's also difficult to get a reasonable answer if you stop a lecture and quiz someone -- most people will duck the question. "I don't really know" is much easier to take than being shown wrong.)

    This sucks really, really hard. It's terribly frustrating to try to explain something and to know that at least a dozen people don't understand, that they're going to ask you the same kind of questions when it's "safe to do so" (when they can ask just you, rather than ask in front of everyone), and not be able to easily field their questions where it'll do the most good. (Sure, I can try to answer their questions before they ask, and I've done so in the past -- but it doesn't work as well because they haven't thought the questions through as thoroughly. Thinking about a question, how to phrase it, what sort of examples to give, that sort of thing helps you understand the problem and makes it easier to learn. I've abandoned about half of the SoPWs I've started because the act of phrasing the question revealed the answer.)

    I'm sort of hoping that someone on PerlMonks knows how to counter this fear of failure. I'd love to have some more tricks up my sleeve the next time I ask, "Any questions?" and get a lab full of silence. But more than that, I think we need to re-think our collective attitude towards "mistake nodes" if people are constantly trying to consider their own "unworthy" nodes for deletion. Fewer "no effort" considerations, maybe. Fewer off-the-cuff downvotes for "dumb" posts. I don't know The Answer(tm); I've just barely started thinking about the problem.

    Finally, a big heartfelt "thanks!" to monks like tye, Ovid, and merlyn (by no means a complete list) who seem to have a limitless capacity for answering even the most basic questions over and over and over again. You folks make the Monastery a great place.

    --
    The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!
    :wq

      Unlike in conferences, silence is not much to fear here because perlmonks is "multi-threaded": multiple conversations can be hold at the same time. Too be feared instead is the conference equivalent of the the gui in the second row. In perlmonks, this would be the guy who would disrupt the continuity of a thread just to show off or to hijack the thread to make dubious connections for the sake of posting irrelevant plugs (here to the masterful Dominus conference).

      -- stefp -- check out TeXmacs wiki

Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Node Status?
node history
Node Type: note [id://181436]
help
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others cooling their heels in the Monastery: (4)
As of 2024-03-28 22:44 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found