My First Bot

[iago]

It's not uncommon for us to turn away people significantly more advanced than you, so it should be little surprise you're not getting helped.  Before you complain, consider: how long did it take you to reach this point?  Probably not very long.  If we did help everyone who got even as far as you have, we'd be deluged in newbies and never have any time to ourselves.

Yes, but if we help more people get to our point then there would be a bigger base of "advanced" people who could help out the less advanced people.  Don't you think it would balance out as more and more people because "advanced"?

An interesting question, albeit not a new one.  Unfortunately, you assume that the people we help would in turn go on to help others.  It has been my experience that most of the people who need that kind of hand-holding really don't have the ability to reach a level where they could do what you suggest.  So, we'd end up with really advanced beggars instead of advanced programmers.  Demonstrating basic problem solving skills is a major step in proving oneself worthy of others' attention.

I missed your pessimistic view of newbies when you weren't around

[MyndFyre]

It's not uncommon for us to turn away people significantly more advanced than you, so it should be little surprise you're not getting helped.  Before you complain, consider: how long did it take you to reach this point?  Probably not very long.  If we did help everyone who got even as far as you have, we'd be deluged in newbies and never have any time to ourselves.

Yes, but if we help more people get to our point then there would be a bigger base of "advanced" people who could help out the less advanced people.  Don't you think it would balance out as more and more people because "advanced"?

An interesting question, albeit not a new one.  Unfortunately, you assume that the people we help would in turn go on to help others.  It has been my experience that most of the people who need that kind of hand-holding really don't have the ability to reach a level where they could do what you suggest.  So, we'd end up with really advanced beggars instead of advanced programmers.  Demonstrating basic problem solving skills is a major step in proving oneself worthy of others' attention.

I missed your pessimistic view of newbies when you weren't around

Really though, he's right.  And, even if they do have the ability to solve problems, who's to say that they'll be willing to help out later?

[iago]

I missed your pessimistic view of newbies when you weren't around

Really though, he's right.  And, even if they do have the ability to solve problems, who's to say that they'll be willing to help out later?

I asked dumb questions when I was learning too.  And not everybody is unable to learn, many pick things up quickly.  I'm surprised at how well a lot of people I talk to do if I start talking about Assembly or Java and they've never seen it before.  Some can do it, some can't, and the ones who can't eventually give up.

[R.a.B.B.i.T]

It's not uncommon for us to turn away people significantly more advanced than you, so it should be little surprise you're not getting helped.  Before you complain, consider: how long did it take you to reach this point?  Probably not very long.  If we did help everyone who got even as far as you have, we'd be deluged in newbies and never have any time to ourselves.

Yes, but if we help more people get to our point then there would be a bigger base of "advanced" people who could help out the less advanced people.  Don't you think it would balance out as more and more people because "advanced"?

An interesting question, albeit not a new one.  Unfortunately, you assume that the people we help would in turn go on to help others.  It has been my experience that most of the people who need that kind of hand-holding really don't have the ability to reach a level where they could do what you suggest.  So, we'd end up with really advanced beggars instead of advanced programmers.  Demonstrating basic problem solving skills is a major step in proving oneself worthy of others' attention.

And thus there are programming classes.  Remember Kp, you started somewhere as well.  Beggars and programmers can come out of the same people, it's just how they're taught.  If the teacher GIVES them everything they need and explains how to use it, the student(s) will become beggar(s).  If, on the other hand, the teacher explains, rather, HOW to do something, the student(s) will more likely grow into programmer(s).

[Tuberload]

Or if the want-to-be programmer figures out what he needs to know and asks legitimate questions he will become a much better programmer.

[R.a.B.B.i.T]

Yes, or that.

[Kp]

And thus there are programming classes.  Remember Kp, you started somewhere as well.  Beggars and programmers can come out of the same people, it's just how they're taught.  If the teacher GIVES them everything they need and explains how to use it, the student(s) will become beggar(s).  If, on the other hand, the teacher explains, rather, HOW to do something, the student(s) will more likely grow into programmer(s).

Yes.  I started with a K&R C book and some persistence.  I picked up networking by looking through publicly released C source that dealt with the net, such as Blizzard's greetbot.  If you really think that hand-holding wannabes through their first stages of trying to compile something is a good idea, please, do it.  I'll not waste my time picking through all of them in the hopes that I'll find one who can become a good programmer.  At least among the battle.net community, the clueless vs. future-legend ratio is far too poor.

[Banana fanna fo fanna]

I bought a QBasic book and figured it out by myself.

[MyndFyre]

I bought a QBasic book and figured it out by myself.

That was how I started.  Except not with Qbasic, but with GW-Basic.  It was DOS 4.33.  

[Banana fanna fo fanna]

you old hag

[Eli_1]

I started with QBasic too.  

[Banana fanna fo fanna]

http://dreael.catty.ch/UsenetBeilagen/QBSOCK.ZIP

[ChR0NiC]

The problems with people who want to learn programming in order to make a bot are as follows; they want to move too fast, they think they can learn it all in one day, they expect to have their own bot programmed within a few hours and they take no actual time to learn the essentials of the language. People come to me (sometimes) and say, I wanna make "****** Bot" and I say, ok how about you start with learning some basic syntax of whatever language you want. The response is, just gimme some code and I'll work with it man. Sorry about this criticism but it's really sad that it has come to this, but I guess we just end up figuring out who will get the hard to find jobs in the field of programming and who will not.

I don't want to give you a fish, I want to teach you how to fish so you can fish for yourself when I am gone or not around.