On Mon, 2006-04-24 at 17:08 +0100, Jason Meers wrote:
> Question?
>
> Are we saying that providing a reference (with or without the F word) is
> preferred over providing a more detailed answer because it's
> counter-productive and doesn't "teach a man to fish"?
Yes. The issue of the F word is irrelevant. I'm not sure about your
culture but the first book of the Bible makes it entirely clear that to
be ashamed of nakedness and natural bodily functions is a sign of sin.
Thus, if you're offended by what you so quaintly call the 'F word' then
you will surely burn in hell :)
And it's not _just_ about about 'teach a man to fish', although that's a
large part of it. With Exim in particular, the documentation can _give_
them the immediate answer they're looking for in _addition_ to them
knowing where to look for more. If the documentation wasn't so good, I
suspect you'd see a lot more answers and a lot fewer references to it.
The other reason is that often, the questions people actually ask aren't
really what they should have asked, and helping to answer the specific
technical question they've asked _isn't_ the best thing for them.
They'll often have gone down some blind alley and got stuck, and then
they ask a technical question about some bizarre thing which they really
shouldn't have been trying to do in the first place.
--
dwmw2
