Frustration

[Former Member]

Hello fellow coffee "cornerers",

I know this has been discussed to bits, there have been threads and blogs all over SDN. What am I referring to? The state of the forums of SDN, or rather the inability of some of its members to make relevant posts. I don't know why I decided to start a new thread on this topic as there already are several of them, I am probably venting some frustration after spending some time on the forums lately. Apologies for this, and the moderators are welcome to delete this thread if they wish, with no hard feelings on my side.

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but is it really that difficult to read the rules before you post? Is it really that difficult to understand that you're not entitled to an answer just because you want one? Is it really that difficult to try and give as much detailed information as possible in your post to your fellow SDN members in order to help them help you? Is it really, is it really... The list can be made endless.

If I had a pound for every time that I have seen a thread with the exact same response over and over again.... If I read a thread and there is already an answer, unless I can contribute further and actually add value to the information already provided, I will not reply! What on Gods green earth posesses people to just reply over and over again with the same thing, causing the thread to be bumped up the queue and thus pushing newer threads down? If it has been answered, let it go!! If the initiator needs more info, he or she will ask for it. Where has common sense gone?? Not to mention the posts with answers completely irrelevant or with answers on such a high level that you might as well not have bothered replying in the first place. Is this just an attempt to collect points? I could go on and on with examples, but I don't need to as you all know them just as well as I do, if not better.

Myself, as others, remember the time when SDN was a place where you could find information and talk to fellow developers and exchange ideas. A time when you were able to find an answer to something, without having to traverse through 1000000000000 of utterly useless repetitive threads, and responses to threads, before you actually found what you were looking for!

As I said, I apologize for this again, I really just needed to vent out some frustration. I don't mean to start another argument or ruin peoples day, but the forums seem to be overrun by members that I can only describe as forum trolls! I know that statement might stir up some emotion, but right now I have no other way of describing them!

And there seems to be no improvement in sight! I've been running ideas through my head as to what we could do to improve the situation, but I'm not sure what could be done. Part of me wishes to reply to some of these threads asking people not to add the same information again and again as it just clutters up the forums. Maybe that is what is needed, for members of the forum to speak to other members and try to stop this. Not ideal, but it might work.

Dion

[stephenjohannes]

Don,

You might want to take a look at this thread:

It is the infamous "O SDN, where art thou?" that discussed almost all your points above.

I think you will find the "choir" was singing very loudly during that discussion.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

Hi Stephen,

it really is a struggle to participate in the forums these days. Quite often I decide not to bother posting questions or replying as most of the times you end up with nothing useful. Shame really. I know that many like me feel the same frustration. The SDN i joined back in '04 seems like a distant memory...

Dion

[Former Member]

Maybe we can look at society today and its trends. We expect things fast, easy and convenient. It is fascinating to look at the number of newer members and see that they mostly have posted questions (not all but many which are unanswered), but rarely contribute to the community. Most of these questions could be answered by searching and trying to learn it on your own by using the resources that are available. It appears to be easier to be spoon fed rather than get your fingers dirty, which takes time. What about the feeling of accomplishing something and being challenged to get the job done, rather than having some one do the coding for you instead (referring to the questions asked in the ABAP General Forum)? I also find it amazing that the same response is posted over and over and over again. Some are understandable as they are minutes apart or shorter, but many are hours later. Dion, maybe it is not frustration but a concern for the future. Food for thought.

[Former Member]

You've got a point there Mike. There is an alarming trend today, and you see it even with developers alot of the times. Noone seems to spend any time doing research or trying to find an answer to something, they seem to find it easier to just "ask" - despite the fact that a little googling takes you a long way in 98% of the times...

[markus_doehr2]

> It is fascinating to look at the number of newer members and see that they mostly have posted questions (not all but many which are unanswered), but rarely contribute to the community. Most of these questions could be answered by searching and trying to learn it on your own by using the resources that are available.

Yes - exactly.

But: SAP is instilling this to the customers. Back in the "old days" there were really really good notes about internals, how things interact with each other, some components are still doing those but the main part of the notes is either "correction" or "workaround".

SAP propagates its software being very easy, they tell people to setup-next-next-finish and they're done. In many application you have wizards which help you, no doubt, but if you finally end in a red bubble instead of a green one, in many cases you don't even have an idea where to look at because there's no documentation what's going on "behind the scene", what is triggered where and how.

In my opinion many of those apparently "silly" questions are a logical result out of that. If you don't have a possibility to do some education yourself and if this is "not wanted" (because there are wizards) then it's only conclusive, that people start asking "my bubble is not turning green, what to do".

> It appears to be easier to be spoon fed rather than get your fingers dirty, which takes time.

Yes - also full ack.

This is the high price for distributed development, where there are only some very few people knowing the application and what it's ought to do in its full complexity. Developers and support people in "SAP components" are often (not always) too single threaded on their task, they don't have the full picture and they are not really interested in having or getting it. For the customer this means, that he has to talk/write to/with different persons to solve a certain problem - which is VERY cumbersome.

So it's pretty easy to "just ask a question in a forum" - and I can't refrain from understanding this - to some extent.

Markus

[Former Member]

Markus, I see where you're coming from and I agree to a certain extent. But that does not explain why we have "developers" coming to these forums asking questions like: "I need build WebDynpro app, plz gimme code" I'm sorry, but that's just pathetic. These people have, in my opinion, no place on a Developer Network. Not being able to find documentation is one thing, after all we've all been there and I'll be the first to admit that SAP documentation is not always of best quality. But as a developer I think it should be expected of you to actually do what you - hopefully - have been trained to do.

To me development is almost 60%-70% research and 30%-40% actual coding, sometimes more sometimes less. We all sometimes reach a point where we come to a dead end in our research or development and might need some guidance from a fellow developer. This is where SDN comes in - or used to anyway.

[markus_doehr2]

Markus, I see where you're coming from and I agree to a certain extent. But that does not explain why we have "developers" coming to these forums asking questions like: "I need build WebDynpro app, plz gimme code" I'm sorry, but that's just pathetic.

I agree - yes. But again - it´s often because it´s propagated as such.

Have you seen a recent high-gloss powerpoint presentation of NW CE? Or Visual Composer? Those presentations give the impression of just clicking around and visually "design your process" - without a single line of code. That´s how it´s propagated and I can tell you, I have a hard time explaining again and again that this works for an SFLIGHT application but not for a complex business process. It´s a good an nice vision but we had this kind back in the 80s (speaking of RAD) and did it work? Hm...

As soon as people notice that, they will ask such questions because they were tought to use the tools from top down - not vice versa. Note: I´m not vindicating lazyness and you´re totally right, that such questions don´t match to a developer network. But this is not much different than other forums (Sun/Glassfish, Webs-Fear or Tomcat). I agree that the quality of answers diminishes the outcome significantly because of that.

The German C++ newsgroup has a strict moderator approval policy. If you get a question through the newsgroup, you can be sure it´s been double checked and approved valid, otherwise it will go down the drain. I´m aware, that this can´t be done for the SDN but there is real quality.

To me development is almost 60%-70% research and 30%-40% actual coding, sometimes more sometimes less. We all sometimes reach a point where we come to a dead end in our research or development and might need some guidance from a fellow developer. This is where SDN comes in - or used to anyway.

I agree. I´m not so much into development but more into adminstration but you´re right. Reading threads were people have a "Basis administrator" signature and don´t even know, how to run/startup/shutdown a database is really pathetic - definitely.

Markus

[Former Member]

Have you seen a recent high-gloss powerpoint presentation of NW CE? Or Visual Composer? Those presentations give the impression of just clicking around and visually "design your process" - without a single line of code. That´s how it´s propagated and I can tell you, I have a hard time explaining again and again that this works for an SFLIGHT application but not for a complex business process. It´s a good an nice vision but we had this kind back in the 80s (speaking of RAD) and did it work? Hm...

Yes very true! The amount of times I've seen presentations like these where someone is standing in front of you explaining that "now you can build applications without a single line of code, almost making developers redundant..." and I always sit in my seat sniggering thinking what a load of s***t - pardon my friench. I see what you mean, these definitely don't help, and I think alot of the times what gets us in "trouble" is the fact that the majority of people who go to these presentations are from a non-technical background. They go back to their companies and come up with ideas of things to do with these non-programming tools and just pass them on to someone who sits millions of miles away. Sooner or later, that requirement ends up on SDN. Serioulsy, how many times have you seen threads with a full spec asking for the solution??? My dear God, it's enough to frighten the pants of you!! I don't know where the communication fails, but it seems to me that the person who reviews that spec is probably someone with knowledge of how to build the solution. However, the actual person who gets the spec and is asked to do the work might not be skilled enough. But even then, if you have a developer background, surely you have the ability to do some research yourself and experiment before coming to a forum, and hopefully ask a relevant question? It just baffles me!

I'm not saying it's just SDN, I'm sure there are plenty of forums out there with similar issues. But I can't stop feeling that SDN has surpassed the rest of them in terms of pointless threads (not to mention pointless blogs, a whole new thread in itself...).

For every day that passes I start to feeling more and more like a grumpy old man that moans endlessly. And I admit, some of it might just be moaning, but I believe there is some validity in my claims as well.

Dion

[pokrakam]

Look on the bright side, the more unskilled people are let loose on projects, the more work for us

I'm finding more and more project components where it's easier to dump the whole lot and start from scratch. Good work for me, and in my experience you don't get a better specification than a failed application that needs a rewrite.

Cheers,

Mike

[Former Member]

Here could be another potential customer for you in the Future.

[Former Member]

sigh

it really is enough to make you lose faith in humanity...

[Former Member]

mike,

this thread is really funny because it's the first time I see people not repetitively posting links to help.sap.com or copy&paste the same code fragments, no, they repetitively tell the poor guy, to do his work first and then come back to 'clear his doubts'....

this could have been thought out by the monty pythons )

anton

[Former Member]

Very True. I am waiitng to see if someone will actually do this program for this person. Makes you feel sorry for the company who hired this person. Won't even try, throw in the towel and ask for help right away. I have a framed picture not far from my desk which says "Achievement: Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow':. It shows a picture of 2 lone trees growing on a separate rock formation in a mountain. I wonder were this person will fit in?

[pokrakam]

LOL, I was going to ask who the potential customer might be: the one asking the question or the donuts all repeating the same response

[Former Member]

LOL, I am glad I didn't add my 2 cents worth, or should I say Donut worth!

[Former Member]

The thread was reported as an abuse, but as long as the answers are all correct so far, I think we can leave it. The OP might still post his code

PS: I didn't quite understand the "donut" comments... and Thomas Z. hasn't even posted to it either?

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

: ) Referring back to Mike's comment about donuts responding with the same respone. A donut does sell for more than 2 cents, at leat here.

[pokrakam]

Doughnuts are missing a bit in the middle. Calling someone a doughnut implies that... do I still need to explain this?

Used in the UK as a more humorous / good-natured way of calling someone an fool.

(deliberate use of alternate American/Brit spelling to be sure to be sure not to offend anyone!)

[Former Member]

Ahhh... I thought it might have something to do with the number of folks who "told him off" for posting his full set of requirements and expecting the code in return...

>

> If I had a pound for every time that I have seen a thread with the exact same response over and over again.... If I read a thread and there is already an answer, unless I can contribute further and actually add value to the information already provided, I will not reply! What on Gods green earth posesses people to just reply over and over again with the same thing, causing the thread to be bumped up the queue and thus pushing newer threads down? If it has been answered, let it go!! If the initiator needs more info, he or she will ask for it. Where has common sense gone?? 

Sometimes I give people "community points" for stepping in like that... hmmm... could be a market there. Unfortunately the points-market does not directly support "schweigen" (German for "abstaining").

Have a nice weekend,

Julius

[matt]

Oh, I thought a doughnet is simply a Berliner.

matt

[ThomasZloch]

Ich bin ein Berliner, but hopefully no doughnut!

[matt]

Whoops, just spotted the typo too late to fix it, but then:

Doughnet - a doughnut with more than one hole.

I like it.

matt

[Former Member]

and what about D'Oh-Nuts?

[Former Member]

All this talk of doughnuts reminds me of the scene in the movie Strange Brew where they try to bribe the secretary with one, and as they hand it to her to get what they want, the line is: "...it's a jelly, eh".

Ah, you gotta love classic dimwitted comedy.

[pokrakam]

Well, I suppose calling someone a Berliner = Jam Doughnut = could imply 'jam-for-brains', so that works just as well - as long as nobody in the conversation hails from Berlin

[ThomasZloch]

>

> Well, I suppose calling someone a Berliner = Jam Doughnut = could imply 'jam-for-brains', so that works just as well - as long as nobody in the conversation hails from Berlin 

Bad luck, here I am!

Feel free to continue with the jokes though, I can stand it.

Browsing ABAP General regularly makes my brain feel like jelly anyway...

[pokrakam]

I bet you guys must wish JFK made his speech in Hamburg

[olivier_segol]

I thought he did it in Berlin (june 1963 from the town hall of the west side) while the city was under embargo (trains ...) by soviet armies.

Is there a German people who can confirm?

Olivier.

[ThomasZloch]

Well, the Blockade was initiated by Stalin in 1948, and the famous "Luftbrücke" was installed by the three Western allies to supply the West Berlin people with food, medicine etc. Thanks again for that

JFK was in Berlin in 1963 at the height of the cold war (Berlin Wall, Cuba crisis, Khrushchev...)

Please check wikipedia for more details.

Thomas

[JanStallkamp]

Hi.

JFK said "Ich bin ein Berliner" when he visited Berlin in June 1963. As far as I know he planned this journey as it was 15th anniversary of the "Luftbrücke" (the soviets blocked all roads and trains to berlin in 1948 and everything the city needed to survive like food and coal for the power plants was brought in by american planes for nearly eleven month! Record was more than 1300 flights in 24 hours...). But some day before he arrived in Berlin the Berlin wall was build and he now visited a city completely surrounded by a concrete wall where people feared that the western world would give up the city.

His sentence "Ich bin ein Berliner" is correct german meaning "I'm a resident of Berlin". I think people understood it as a strong commitment to the city of Berlin and most likely the soviets also understood it as a kind of warning. The funny part is that in the rest of germany Berliner also is the word for a 'jelly-filled doughnut'. But in Berlin the call it "Pfannkuchen" (which the rest of germany uses for pancake...). So everything was ok with his speach. And I think today it is one of the most know quotes from the last century. I can remember a series of TV history shows where in the trailer you could hear several recorded quotes. And the line "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words u201AIch bin ein Berlineru2018!" was one of them.

Then there is a second popular speach from a US president in Berlin: in 1987 Ronald Reagan said: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!". Also a very strong speach and very famous.

Perhaps with this background our US-SDN fellows can understand why there is a big debate at the moment about Obama visiting Berlin and if he should speak at the Brandenburg gate or not. A public speach in Berlin by american president or a presidential candidate is a very strong signal. It has a lot more importance than speaking in any other city of germany.

Best regards,

Jan

PS: Recently there was the 60th anniversary of the Luftbrücke. Maybe you will find some good web sites about it. I think its one of the greatest things ever happend. It was only three years after WW II. Many parts of Berlin still were destroyed. American (and British) pilots risked their live to support a country they had been in war with only three years ago... And to support such a big city only via airplanes is just amazing.

[pokrakam]

>

I thought he did it in Berlin...

Yes he did, as Julius Jan so graciously explained.

My attempt at humor was to ask whether the Berlin folks wish he had done it in Hamburg - due to the Berliner double meaning of "People if Berlin"/"Jam Doughnut".

Because if he had said the same thing in Hamburg, the same double meaning would still apply: "Ich bin ein Hamburger" (I am a hamburger)

Edited by: Mike Pokraka on Jul 15, 2008 1:25 PM - Jan Jan Jan! It was Jan who explained it, not Julius!

[olivier_segol]

Sorry Mike,

I didn't understand it was a joke

Olivier

[matt]

I had a very good natured colleague from Berlin. We used to call him "doughnut", in the nicest possible way. Eventually he asked why, and we explained. He replied

"No, that's not right. A Berliner isn't really a doughnut, it's more a ..." The rest was drowned out in laughter.