Re: [exim] Compile time problems

On Sat, 2006-04-01 at 12:32 +0200, David Saez Padros wrote:
> Just a note to say that lately it's very common to see answers to
> questions just saying 'do not do that' or 'why do you want to do that'
> instead of answering the real question, making proselitism about each
> one policies or opinions when nobody asked for it (and when that kind
> of questions has been largely discussed before)

Taking your points in reverse order...

The question of whether it's been discussed before is irrelevant in this
context, in my opinion. The mechanism of how to _build_ it has also been
discussed before too -- so if we're going to be _strict_ about such
things, we should have just told Doug to sod off and read the archives.
But generally we aren't that strict. Doug hasn't been party to this
discussion before, so I was merely making him aware of it.

And to address your _main_ point... yes, we _do_ say that kind of thing
a lot. Especially with a user who seems naïve (and, without meaning to
be rude to Doug, he obviously hasn't been round this _particular_ block
too many times if he had to ask the question he did), it does make a lot
of sense to take a holistic approach and deal with what they're actually
trying to _achieve_, rather than just addressing the specific questions
they might come up with after chasing down some blind alley on their own
and getting stuck.

When Fedora users ask how they can install the kernel sources, I'll
_always_ tell them they probably don't want to do that -- if they're
only trying to build kernel modules, then they need the 'kernel-devel'
package which contains just the headers. Would it really be _helpful_ of
me to answer the question directly in that context, without offering
anything more?

It's just the same when naïve users ask how to set up SPF. I won't
withhold the direct answer (which you'd already given in this case), but
I'll _always_ point out the problems and advise them that they probably
don't really want to do that.

--
dwmw2