Help vs Doing It For Them

[michael]

I came here once a year ago, and I got roped into doing the coding for the people.

It tweaked me off in a way, because, I knew the people were getting paid 2-3x what I was, and I was essencially doing their job for them.

So the question is, does this happen to you?

I try to stray from letting this happen these days... but ... aarg. Some of the posts are so clueless...

[jeremuck]

I try to give hints.

if I end up giving the code away, I try to make sure they understand the issue at hand, so they won't ask again.

[daynah]

This use to happen a lot in school for me. I guess I was too 'nice' that I did end up doing people's work for them. Which was bad, because they didn't understand it afterwards.

Now, I just help.. and explain things, why I do this and that. And the best help anyone can give (code-wise) is giving pseudocode, and pointing them in the right direction. Or listen to their ideas and tell them why it won't work or better ways to optimize it.

My advice to the situation is, if you want to help someone, listen to them, and give them ideas, but don't do the work for them. That will only snowball negative results.

[james2010]

I'm fairly new to php and only do it as a hobby, so quite often I'm on the recieving end of this, though not so much anymore.

Anyways, I find that helping other people can be quite rewarding and in many cases actually benefits me as well as the person I'm helping. In many cases I find solving someone elses problem can be a win-win scenario. For the receiver's side of it, they are able to achieve an effective code to run their ideas. In return for this you get to see this person's ideas and may even implement them in your own work.

If the person you're helping has a really good idea but just can't express it in code, I think their idea will be much more valuable to you (someone that really understands the code) than it will be to the person you're helping.

~and then there's always those standard questions that always seem to come up and do absolutely nothing for you

[greg252]

Well, there is a BIG difference between pointing someone in the right direction and doing a job for them.

The difference is this:
When you post a response, the person with the problem should learn from the answer. If they just copy and paste the solution into their code, they gain absolutely nothing.

It's a growing process and to do someone's job means that they will just come back for the same solution.

Give a man a fish and he will eat.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat forever.

[jeremuck]

hehe I tried quoting that to brcolow

[daynah]

Hmm.. I think that's the same person who consently messaged me telling me to look at the message board with his problem. :eek: