I'm afraid this isn't SPAM or a joke...

Comments

# William said on September 20, 2004 7:16 PM:

Why not just send your favorite piece of code :-)

# William said on September 20, 2004 10:31 PM:

Or do what I do. "delete"

Some weeks I get 100+ e-mails asking questions or wanting code. About 99% of them I just delete. I do answer that 1% though that really interest me.

However if they come from outside the US or Scandinavia it's an instant delete. Bad English delete, all caps delete, to many spelling mistakes delete, a name full of "j" and "y" characters delete, Russian name delete. ( Yep I'm an @sshole, so sue me. I don't get paid to be nice to random code trolls, I get paid to be good at what I do )

You wouldn't believe what some people expect you to actually reply to. A lot of them basically ( especially the third world ones I get ) want you to do their job or provide them with full blown source libraries.

Don't even go there. Just hit delete, it's the easiest way to deal with them.

# William said on September 20, 2004 10:43 PM:

was wondering why you weren't replying back to my messages :)

# William said on September 21, 2004 5:25 AM:

I tend to believe that a significant percentage of people looking for code samples, asking dumb questions they could have found out themselves, etc. are more ice breakers rather than legitimate questions. It's the equivalent of "what's your sign" or "what's up" in the geek world. So be nice to them, you never know when you'll need 'em later. Don't spoonfeed them though (it's a waste of valuable time), just point them to the relevant sources of info, fire and forget.

# William said on September 21, 2004 8:45 AM:

KC, which ones? I'll check my other email accounts now.

# William said on September 21, 2004 8:47 AM:

Andy:

Actually your idea rocks, probably should write the algorithms for it and let a program do it for me. I think you're right for sure on this one, most of the ones I get are people looking for like a LOT of code. When I send them suggestions or a few lines, they usually hit me back with "Well, I still don't understand, can you write the whole thing for me - you ARE a real professional developer aren't you? Then it shoudlnt' take but a small amount of your time" Not always the same but usually something with that as its base class.

# William said on September 21, 2004 8:50 AM:

Rob:

That's what I used to think - but my main fear is that they are students looking for someone to do their work. "Bill, I have a needs for a program that stores the scores of cricket matches. Must implement collectionbase. Must use typed datasets. The table structure must be in 3rd normal form. All methods and properties must have pre and post requirements. " This is a real one I got about two months ago and have gotten probably about 9 that I'd bet a paycheck on that they are students.

# William said on September 21, 2004 12:06 PM:

I don't get anywhere near what you guys get but I do get some emails asking for code or help. Mostly from people who see me respond on forum and look up my email. I think that Andy's got the right idea, especially if he gets that many emails! There are TONS of sites that they can look on for examples, and lots of books to buy if they've got the money. Usually you can see from the email if the person is really trying to solve the problem and just needs a little help, or if they are looking for someone to do their coding for them.

# William said on September 24, 2004 3:29 AM:

Bill, yeah that sounds like student projects alright. I always wondered why some people who take comp sci are not really interested in comp sci. No pain no gain.

# William said on September 25, 2004 4:55 PM:

Rob - that is definintely a major that if you cheat - you're REALLY screwing yourself. I was a philosophy major in undergrad and while I didn't cheat, I blew a lot of stuff off and really didn't take a lot of things seriously. since I never had a prayer of getting a job as a philosopher anyway, it 'hurt' me only in the sense of foregone knowledge I could have otherwise had. However it hasn't had any impact on my career because, well, I had to go get further education before i could be a programmer. But struggling through problems, looking for stuff, all the 'crap' associated with a CS degree is sooooo necessary, you'd be nuts to avoid it. It certainly isn't going to get any better once you start collecting a paycheck for programming. I agree with you - I have no clue why you'd chose that major if you don't want to work.