Re: New to Rails? Read This

Today's post revolves around communication and SME appreciation.  SME's
are Subject Matter Experts and every language or platform discussion
groups have them. These are generally people that have a great deal of
experience and house a wealth of knowledge that they share with others
in the community.

There are numerous SMEs that assist with answering questions by the
minute and it would do well to thank them and be appreciative of their
help.

However, how do you communicate your topic and readily obtain answers
from different SMEs?

======================
**-------**: Rule One:
======================

Make certain that your topic is descriptive enough to highlight your
issue.  Having trouble with queries or models - simply say so.

Example of a bad topic thread:

"I'm having trouble, please help"

-- this doesn't describe anything and your topic might be avoided.

Example of a good topic thread:

"Need assistance with model/query issue"

-- this describes the problem as being related to models/queries.

======================
**-------**: Rule Two:
======================

Make certain that your topic contains all of the pertinent information
surrounding your issue.  More information is always better than less
information.

If you were having a model/query issue you would want to post a general
idea of what both your controller method initiating the query looks
like, and the model method being called looks like.  You would also want
to make sure you tested that query in a console so you could see what
the output is.  Supplying these three things would make it much easier
for someone to assist with a model/query issue for instance.

========================
**-------**: Rule Three:
========================

Always make sure you try the simple things first before posting on an
issue.  A lot of issues stem from a simple restart of a server because
some changes never took effect.

Make sure your syntax looks appropriate in the editor you are using.
Make sure you at the very minimum try to test or debug the code in the
console.  Doing this will make it easier when adding information to your
topic.

=========================
Lastly,

Thank the people that helped you resolve your issue.  Patience,
understanding, reflection on the way a person helps you and your end
response goes a long way.  These SMEs are giving their own volunteer
time and knowledge to help you.  Make sure you show them the respect
they deserve.

==================================================
Channels and Communication Forums / MIRC:
==================================================

http://www.ruby-forum.com
http://railsforum.com

Start here to choose the forum that best describes your needs.  Ruby on
Rails is my choice each and every day.

Mirc Channels:

Ruby Language:  #ruby-lang on the irc.freenode.net server
Ruby on Rails:  #rubyonrails on the irc.freenode.net server

There are a lot of people on the ruby on rails channel.  There are a
great many SMEs there that assist by the second.  Please be patient when
asking for help on IRC.

If you need help with IRC chat and you need some code looked at, make
sure you go to Pastie.org before asking for help:

http://pastie.org/

You can put all of your code that needs help with on here and it will
give you a nice neat link.  You can link that into IRC chat and anyone
can see the code and assist you.  It's also properly formatted
automatically for you!

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

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