Solar's Law on Kernel Space

os.hacker64 · Post by **os.hacker64** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:07 pm

I pretty much know when I've asked a noobish question, but when you have a problem, you have a problem.

01000101 · Post by **01000101** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:46 pm

If you want to shoe away the absolute beginners, just point them to OSDever.net. That is where they will get the really base experience as it has a great selection of tutorials that will weed out the ones just trying to be 'leet' or something of the like. then once they have raped the tutorials to death, they will most likely come back to here and ask questions.

inflater · Post by **inflater** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:37 pm

01000101 wrote:If you want to shoe away the absolute beginners, just point them to OSDever.net. That is where they will get the really base experience as it has a great selection of tutorials that will weed out the ones just trying to be 'leet' or something of the like.

Only 15% of beginners RTFMed here would actually look into the bona fide manuals... Excluding me. I used AThelp if something was tricky and suddenly I realized that OSdeving is like to carry coals to Newcastle.

At least for me though. No big, ahum, "community" would use our OSes because they aren't having these fancey "WOW" design like Windows Vista has... courtesy of m$ brainwashing

xyjamepa · Post by **xyjamepa** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:31 pm

I agree with you the whole idea here ,but don't you think that every one should do some stupid mistakes,so he can learn from his mistakes,
and guide the other members here so not to do his mistakes.

Thanx.

naiksidd_85 · Post by **naiksidd_85** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:51 pm

don't you think that every one should do some stupid mistakes,so he can learn from his mistakes,

well said abuashraf..........

Solar · Post by **Solar** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 1:05 am

Wave wrote:
Solar wrote:should know at least 75% of your compiler's options
Last I counted GCC had about 330 command line options excluding machine dependent options (including: 1100). Do you really want me to know 75% of those?!?

I don't expect you knowing them by heart, but I would expect you having read the manual at least once, skipping only those parts that clearly don't apply (like, SH3 machine details etc.), and return to the manual if you want to know something about the compiler before asking in some forum.

That is what I would expect of any halfway mature developer, which is my point after all.

@ abuashraf:

No problem with learning-in-the-process. But when I want to learn how to walk upright, I don't pick out a battlefield to do so, right?

zaleschiemilgabriel · Post by **zaleschiemilgabriel** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:52 am

Yup! That's the way the world goes round! There are noobs and there are pros.

Noobs annoy pros into helping them become pros. Then come along other noobs... and so on and so forth.
Anyway, in fairness to the point of this forum, the noobs here are not really noobs. They want to become pros without any knowledge.
The problem IMO is that the "noob" standard for this forum is set too low. I would qualify a noob OS developer as a person who at least knows how to debug their own asm code.

If you also divide noobs by programming language, I'd say that there are a lot more C++ noobs than there are asm noobs. With asm coders you could at least expect them to understand their own code, if not debug it, but with C++ coders you can't even get them to compile their code, let alone debug anything.

No pun intended/aimed at anyone specific type of noob/yours truly,
Gabriel

- a noob OSDev'er

P.S.: Try counting the number of "noobs" in this topic.

xyjamepa · Post by **xyjamepa** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:15 pm

Solar wrote: @ abuashraf:
No problem with learning-in-the-process. But when I want to learn how to walk upright, I don't pick out a battlefield to do so, right?

Right...

I have been thinking about the problem we are discussing here,
so I thought why not we put a test,or some code snippt in the registeretion
form so when peopel want to join this forum they have to solve this test,
the first problem came out to my head that you can code an os using
C/C++ ,Asm ,pascal ,Perl and more ...I think,
Also this tests must be updated and who is gonna put this tests....
Alot of problem,so forget about this idea,
another idea came out to my mind...
Evey one wants to join this forum,and after his/her registeretion, posting new topics or replying won't be allowed befor one month ,this way if some one joing the forum and he's not skilled as coder,,he can only read so he will read the wiki,and some posts...
since he isn't a good coder he won't go any where during this month by him self,as a result he will lose interest in os coding so he will not post
On the other hand if some one is a skilled coder ,during this month will read the wiki,and he well make somthing ...
So he will not lose the interest in os coding ,and after one month of his registeretion he'll be able to send and reply...

does this make any sense?

What do you think?

zaleschiemilgabriel · Post by **zaleschiemilgabriel** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 4:08 am

abuashraf wrote: does this make any sense?

I don't think it makes sense to take such drastic measures.
The reason I joined the forum, for example, was because I had a lot of questions that I wanted to ask that were not language-related. If I had to wait a month to ask those questions, I might just as well started to figure out the answers myself, and would have, eventually... Well, I soon realized from the attitude of the answers I got that I would have been better off doing that in the first place.

One thing that I think SHOULD be done is something that underlines the relationship of this forum to the OSDev wiki. Also, in it's current layout, the wiki is quite useful, but it's not nearly complete or maintained the way Wikipedia is, for example (please don't clobber me for that comparison, it's just that I'm used to Wikipedia's "completness"). What I would have liked to see on the OSDev wiki would be more specification-like articles, not tutorials or copy-pastes form articles that can be found elsewhere on the web. Anyway, I'm not going to judge the wiki for anything, because it's not my place to do that. What I'm trying to say is that people on the forum will always be expected to know more than what's on the wiki, and that bothers me a little.

Maybe there should be more encouragement into writing articles on the wiki...

AJ · Post by AJ » Thu Feb 28, 2008 4:29 am

Hi,

We had the idea put to the forum a while ago that everyone's first post should be moderated before it appears on the forum and that user is 'validated'. Aside from the huge amount of work this would create for the mods, it seems a bit of a shame to have to do this seeing as it's a relatively small minority that come to the forums saying 'code my os for me plz'.

I tend to take quite a lenient view of people coming to the forums being unfamiliar with their toolchain, as I had never used GCC before starting OS devving - although I was familiar with MASM, Visual C++ and #Develop.

Maybe there should be more encouragement into writing articles on the wiki...

Absolutely - particuarly helping to fill gaps on the wish list and stubs pages.

Cheers,
Adam

skyking · Post by **skyking** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:41 pm

One thing that might be worth considering is to make www.osdev.org take you directly to the wiki instead of the page where you can choose between the wiki and the forum (that even has the forum link to the left which means first in cultures that read from left to right).

That might encourage people to read the wiki first.

sancho1980 · Post by **sancho1980** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:08 pm

Solar wrote:
Wave wrote:
Solar wrote:should know at least 75% of your compiler's options
Last I counted GCC had about 330 command line options excluding machine dependent options (including: 1100). Do you really want me to know 75% of those?!?
I don't expect you knowing them by heart, but I would expect you having read the manual at least once, skipping only those parts that clearly don't apply (like, SH3 machine details etc.), and return to the manual if you want to know something about the compiler before asking in some forum.

That is what I would expect of any halfway mature developer, which is my point after all.

@ abuashraf:

No problem with learning-in-the-process. But when I want to learn how to walk upright, I don't pick out a battlefield to do so, right?

I think what this whole forum lacks is some kind of a beginner's corner. If under "OSDev Forum Forum Index" there was another forum called "newbies", I reckon many people would go there to ask their trivial questions. Then for the veterans, it's up to them whether they even read it or not. I consider myself an intermediate if at all. And i find that i am indeed learning a lot by asking (sometimes n00bish) questions. I *know* there are tutorials out there. But sometimes you read a tutorial and don't really get the point. I guess it's a combination of wording and how each individual brain works. I am also trying to write an OS, even though I may know a lot less about the matter than many around here. But hey, I *am* making progress. And yes, there are times when a veteran on here answers my stupid question and then tells me to rtfm before next time. I think it's really up to everyone whether or not they post an answer to an unintelligent question. I find myself reading posts on here sometimes where I think "What astupid question", but rather than telling someone to rtfm, I prefer not to write anything at all.

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:17 pm

I think what this whole forum lacks is some kind of a beginner's corner. If under "OSDev Forum Forum Index" there was another forum called "newbies", I reckon many people would go there to ask their trivial questions. Then for the veterans, it's up to them whether they even read it or not. I consider myself an intermediate if at all. And i find that i am indeed learning a lot by asking (sometimes n00bish) questions. I *know* there are tutorials out there. But sometimes you read a tutorial and don't really get the point. I guess it's a combination of wording and how each individual brain works. I am also trying to write an OS, even though I may know a lot less about the matter than many around here. But hey, I *am* making progress. And yes, there are times when a veteran on here answers my stupid question and then tells me to rtfm before next time. I think it's really up to everyone whether or not they post an answer to an unintelligent question. I find myself reading posts on here sometimes where I think "What astupid question", but rather than telling someone to rtfm, I prefer not to write anything at all.

The problem is not with the newbies, but rather the subset that doesn't read the forum rules and are completely unwilling to do their own homework. If I do tell someone to go look for an answer elsewhere it is mainly because I estimate their time spent on finding an answer at a minimum time. At that point the guide to asking smart questions comes in pretty soon because if you can post a smart question, you have bothered to do your own work.

So essentially, if you got STFWed recently, it probably means that you could probably solve your own problem with a bit more work.

bewing · Post by **bewing** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:57 am

I like the idea of a newbie's corner. I agree with Combuster that newbies are not the problem. However, teaching someone a concept is one of the best ways to gain a really good comprehension of it yourself. In the newbie's corner, the intermediate level OS programmers could spend their time handholding for the most childlike of the n00bs. And turning into pros, themselves, in the process.

I think the wiki (especially the hardware section) needs a lot of rewriting. I've been trying to do it myself, but to do a good job rewriting an entry, I need to completely understand the topic -- which means coding it into my OS. Which takes a couple months per topic. Kenny and I are about to collaborate on really extending the ATA wiki entry next.

But with a few more really helpful wiki articles, it seems to me that quite a few of the noobiest questions on the board would probably go away.

distantvoices · Post by **distantvoices** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:21 am

oh ye olden time of glory, whither hast thou withdrawn thy joyful presence ...

Oh, how I relished those joyful discussions with Pype and Solar back in the days of the mega-tokyo community.

Well, be as it may be, I for one have this point of view: If I don't want to respond to a given question, due to whatever reason, I just don't do it - and do not scald the poster except he/she fails to keep them manners. Well ... in future I'll even refrain from that for I simply lack the time to sift throu all those posts.

Anyway, the art of silently lurking on a forum in order to get the knack opf how things are done in that place is something recommendable I daresay.

Stay safe and away from stuff you don't yet understand.

and be warned:

debug sessions darker than night are coming ...(c)2003 distantvoices