[Naomi]

My question is: what is it about the naivete of the uninformed/the queries of the inexperienced, which incite such revulsion in the mind of a programmer? Aside from the fact that obviously no one wants to waste time filling someone in on the basics, or do their work for them? Something about being an outsider is, sometimes, inherently looked down upon in this field, it seems. These aren't isolated incidents, is it some sort of reflex? Could it be an assumption of stupidity, because how could any cognizant human be unable to think in that way?

[wccrawford]

I think there's a few factors at work:

1) The programmer was there once, and probably worked through it on their own. Nobody held their hand.

2) The information being asked is probably in every programming book every written and duplicated hundreds of thousands of times on the internet.

3) Dealing with past programmer-hopefuls has been really disappointing as most of them never get anywhere.

Helping people learn is -awesome-. Holding their hand and doing everything for them is horrifyingly boring and frustrating.

At work, I've had people who were genuinely interested in working hard and learning. They were great and I don't regret a second of the time I spent. These people were generally inclined to look things up for themselves, and only ask for help when they get stuck.

I've had others that I gave way more time than the good learners and they were going nowhere. Then management stepped in and told me I didn't give them enough time and demanded that I spend 1-2 hours every day with them. After weeks of losing 5-10 hours a week, I finally managed to get management to see that no amount of time would help. These people were generally inclined to wait until they could ask a question, instead of looking it up for themselves. It often meant days of non-productivity since they get lost again as soon as you leave their desk.

So to conclude, when a novice programmer asks a really naive question, the first response is to assume they haven't done any legwork on their own, and so the question is really annoying.

[mattdeboard]

That's a lot of syllables to ask, "Why are there so many assholes in this field?"

The answer is low self-esteem and/or poor social skills.

[gaius]

These are the kids the girls overlooked in school for the jocks... No wonder they're inexperienced.

[rorymarinich]

Ah! But did the girls overlook them because they naturally preferred jocks? Or did they overlook them because even when they were younger they lacked a certain social ability that other kids had?

My youthful experience was that nerds tended to be just as sexually active as jocks. They just tended to be active in different ways.

[gaius]

A little of both I guess. Note that I am not saying girls "deserve" it at college for what they did (or rather didn't) do at school. But y'know, as frustrated as she is, that kid had probably explained the ls command a hundred times to people. Both blaming the other for their inexperience.

[rorymarinich]

Hmm. I see where you're coming from, but I don't think that the kid's impatience and intolerance necessarily came from the fact that she was a she. I'm a guy who's seen plenty of exasperation and arrogance from other guys.

(And on the flip side, I know a few programmers who are incredibly nice and patient people but still have problems talking to girls. So I'm not denying that some guys find girls intimidating. But I think that inexperience isn't necessarily what leads to poor social skills in other areas.)

[gaius]

Yep true - but if she'd had any experience of geeks she'd just have shrugged it off as nothing personal.