Thanks for the help not given :)

[J]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 17:58, Phlip <phlip2005 at gmail.com> wrote:
> To the OP - adding "... because Python sucks" to your subject lines will
> increase the quantity of answers - but possibly not the quality.

Unlike Stephan, I hope this was intended in humor/irony rather than
the way it looks, because my OP was meant humorously/ironically.

> You can also learn a little about good questions by answering others's here.

I don't answer questions without having $CLUE, fortunately.  I've been
on lists like this for well over 15 years, going back to when the only
place to find them was usenet, and I've been party to and target of my
fair share of flame wars due to improperly formatted questions or
uninformed answers ;-)

> And I hope you answered your questions here, if no one else did, to avoid
> dead search trails in the archives. You learn by teaching!

Indeed, which is why I teach Linux 101 at the community college level
(credited, not con-ed, an actual, honest to goodness Linux course!!).
I have not answered my own questions here, because the ones that I can
and eventually answer myself, such as the three I mentioned in my OP,
were really so basic as to be just noise on this list (though I guess
this discussion probably borders on it too).  My original POINT was
that the help/answers that I HAVE received here, in addition to the
various threads I read as they come up, has given me enough background
education to really start figuring things out on my own, as opposed to
constantly asking someone else for an answer or trying to grep my way
through various documents/tutorials/HOW-TOs/books/etc.

So it really was meant as a thanks for the people here who do have
$CLUE for helping me start getting one of my own.

> As for me, my questions are usually some combination of hopelessly retarded
> and beyond the blue sky envelope that I take pity on anyone even reading
> them, less answering them...

I sometimes think that of my own questions, though I really do try to
keep the basic questions to a minimum anywhere... then again, we all
have to start somewhere, which is why I try to not haze newbies, even
when that's my first reaction.

> Jon Clements wrote:
>
>> You have a bear that likes a Python? The one I have just keeps going
>> on about Piglet and eating my honey reserves...

As for Jon, and Aahz, I'd try the teddy bear approach, but the last
one I knew led me down the dark path to Perl and thus I try to avoid
them whenever possible ;-)

Cheers,

Jeff

-- 

Jonathan Swift  - "May you live every day of your life." -
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jonathan_swift.html