[ILUG-Social] Re: [ILUG] kill process by name

[kevin lyda]

On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 11:38:39AM +0100, Colm Buckley wrote:
> However, we have here a recurrence of what I call the "hrishy homework
> problem"; you seem to ask a question as soon as a problem arises
> without making any real effort to solve the problem for yourself - in
> this case, it would have taken less than ten seconds to find the
> "killall" program using "man -k":

answers like this are why linux/unix is considered elitist.  what i
don't understand is why.  when newbies come to a unix mailing list and
ask simple questions it seems like there are two "helpful" options:

    1. answer the question.  this way the user has their answer and yet
       is really none the wiser, still dependant on the gurus.

    2. tell them how to answer the question.  this is "elitist" and
       yet it's really trying to ween the user off of their dependance on
       "gurus."  essentially making the elite less elite.

colm's answer actually did both.

i dunno, one of those complaints that always confused me.  i'm just
putting this on social, but if anyone can explain the reasoning it would
be nice to hear.

kevin

-- 
kevin at suberic.net     that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to
fork()'ed on 37058400    the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier
meatspace place: home       than a sober one. the happiness of credulity is a
http://ie.suberic.net/~kevin   cheap & dangerous quality -- g.b. shaw