May 24 2005, 12:35
newbies and other sorts. (I really hate these titles...)

I'm tired of being looked down upon, I've programmed in TI-BASIC for 3 years now, and I'm being talked down to and looked down upon like I have no clue what I'm doing! Almost every time I post a snippit of code and a question about this code, someone is quicker to point out the fact that my code isn't optimized and that I don't have any idea what I'm doing. These people never answer my question, just tell me that I'm a n00b. Well I feel that if this is a general consenses towards newbies then it's no wonder other people don't recognize us as a "real" community. If every new person to industry was treated as a complete and total ignoant fool, this person might as well leave. Now I've tried to ignore this, I've tried to push through this, and I've made headway. But I personally know some people that are furious at some others in this community of ours. When all this escalates to a point of people being furious at each other over a snippit of code then somewhere warning bells SHOULD be going off. But have there been any? If there have been we've been ignoring them and moving on. People should not force their codeing style on others, if code isn't optimized, will it really kill you to let it go? If the current trend continues then we and only we can be held responsible for losing the next Hitoshi Koizumi or the next Patrick Davidson. Great programmers are thrown our way all the time and we are so busy to make them feel worthless and foolish, rather than help them out and help them take their project as far as it can go. I find it disturbing that we are not a symbotic relationship to ourselves, we are a parasite sucking the life out of it's own body. Granted the effects will be slow and go rightfully unknoticed for a long time. But the time will come when the TI community will die out, maybe it's not to late, maybe we can return to the days when we where using and sharing hacks to play ASM games on our 85s. Maybe, just maybe the next big step won't have to be taken by the new programmers, but the established vetrans.

-Fred Sparks