[CentOS] Dogs, trolls, and neighborly free/open source

[Paul Heinlein]

On Thu, 5 Aug 2010, Les Mikesell wrote:

> The part I have trouble understanding is that while it seems 
> perfectly acceptable to be dumb about most coding languages and ask 
> for a canned routine to do something you are too lazy to write for 
> yourself, the same does not apply to shell commands even though 
> there is not much inherent difference in complexity.  Is it just 
> that coders are more willing to share their work than administrators 
> even in cases where it is equally reusable?

The major difference I've seen in that sort of request is that 
coders tend to ask for help with a small subset of the 
overall task (a routine) while erstwhile admins tend to ask for help 
with the totality of the task.

When someone says, "I'm writing a shell script, and hereabouts I need 
$TOOL to do such and such," a good answer is usually forthcoming.

When someone says, "Tell me how to script this $PROJECT," the 
commmunity usually points the OP off to Google/Manual.

Mostly.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/