How Do I...?

[Tim Chase]

Victor Subervi wrote:
>> The aim was not arrogance, but expression of exasperation
> 
> "Walk a mile in my mocassins." You can't do it. I'm an artist.
>  I think out of my right hemisphere, not my left like you. You
>  couldn't possibly understand.
[snip]
> Thank you for your help anyway. Thank you for your patience. 
> Please try to understand. It starts by understanding you can't
>  understand.
[snip]
> The whole universe is a program. I program to understand it in
> a way you couldn't even begin to grasp.

I'm not sure how I become the one accused of arrogance.  Or where 
my right-brain ceases to be as magnificent as yours and my 
capacity to understand you falls so short -- whether it's 
speaking Spanish or being conversational in ASL; authoring and 
illustrating a children's book; striving for beautiful code 
(Stephen's recent post well summarizes elegance in code); 
submitting my work status reports in [limerick, sonnet, rap, 
comic, pop-music spoof, crossword puzzle, etc]; cooking; 
sewing/crafting/needlework; painting; wood-working; 
guitar-playing; the philosophy minor; creating balloon art, etc. 
  It would seem I use both sides of the brain, like many others 
on the list here.  For just a single example reference, check out 
Adrian Holovaty (one of the Django founders) jamming some 
beautiful guitar-work on YouTube.

> The problem is that I quite literally can't think like you. I
> have to force myself to do it every time. To you it's as
> natural as breathing, which is why you can't relate.

In time and with repeated exercise, it's possible to develop both 
sides of the brain.  One side may dominate (and I'll forthrightly 
declare that my left brain dominates), but it doesn't excuse 
failure to strengthen the weaker side.

> You have my continued promise that I will do all 
> I can to edit my questions as intelligently as you would 
> before I post them. Trust me, I don't like looking foolish, 
> and I know I do. You should recognize that that alone is 
> chiding enough. It doesn't stop me, however, for continuing to
> program.

I appreciate your efforts to edit -- I've provided a bit of a 
check-list that you can use to make sure you've googled for the 
obvious; taken the time understand the problem in both a local 
context and stepping away to see the big-picture view of the 
problem; taken a survey of your available tools; read the 
tracebacks to try and understand what they're telling you; and 
when you post (with replies inline), provide the code exactly as 
it's erroring for you (stripped down examples are nice, as long 
as they reproduce the problem) instead of transcribing something 
like your code; if you get exceptions post the full traceback not 
just your interpretation of them; and if you're running in a 
non-conventional environment such as a web-server instead of a 
standalone application, it's helpful to note it up front.  The 
perennial "Smart Questions" article by ESR might also be a useful 
read in ingratiating yourself.

By demonstrating that you've exerted the effort to help the list 
help you, it encourages us to provide the best answers.  On the 
whole, the list does enjoy being helpful.

And when you do get a helpful answer, saying thanks is always 
appreciated...

> I appreciate Tim's advice

something I've noted you've improved on lately...thanks in return.

> I came across as I intended.

Your intent was to come across condescendingly as a right-brained 
artist struggling to be understood yet obdurately plunging ahead 
without striving to facilitate others in helping you?

-tkc