| Java-related Newsgroups |
| Newsgroup |
Purpose |
| alt.html |
HTML and browser problems |
| comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets |
CSS style sheets |
| comp.lang.java.3d |
The Java 3D API |
| comp.lang.java.announce |
Announcements. Discontinued. Rumoured to have been revived. |
| comp.lang.java.advocacy |
Java politics, comparisons with other languages, exchanging juvenile insults,
suggested changes to the language, arguments about the best way of doing things
in Java. |
| comp.lang.java.beans |
JavaBeans and similar component frameworks |
| comp.lang.java.corba |
Common Object Request Broker Architecture and Java |
| comp.lang.java.databases |
SQL, JDBC and other databases. |
| comp.lang.java.gui |
intermediate and advanced AWT and Swing questions. |
| comp.lang.java.help |
Newbie questions. Don't post your homework assignments verbatim. You will
get your head bitten off. Ask specific questions about what you don't understand.
Don't play helpless! Avoid using any language that even remotely smacks of a
homework assignment. Don't use the imperative, e.g. write method that ...
Only profs imperiously command that way. If you are in doubt about where to put
you question, or if you are new, put your question here. |
| comp.lang.java.machine |
The JVM internals, garbage collection, Java chips. |
| comp.lang.java.programmer |
Advanced programming questions not about the GUI, e.g. serialization, RMI,
reflection. It also handles Tomcat, servlets and J2EE.
Please keep newbie questions in comp.lang.java.help.
Please put your JDBC questions in comp.lang.java.databases. |
| comp.lang.java.security |
Using Java securely, Applet jar signing, certificates, encryption. |
|
comp.lang.java.softwaretools |
Tools and libraries. Bugs in various IDEs. |
| comp.lang.javascript |
Javascript, a quite different language from Java. |
| comp.lang.java.javascript |
DO NOT USE, unoffical group on mixing Java and Javascript. |
| comp.lang.java.developer |
DO NOT USE, unofficial group for Java developers. Seems to duplicate comp.lang.java.programmer. |
| comp.lang.java.setup |
Getting Java installed |
Contrary to popular belief there is no such newsgroup as
-
Look at other recent posts
See which posts are getting answers. Do what they do. See if there are
discussions of your problem already posted. Ask your question in that context.
You make a total ass of yourself if the first question you ask in a newsgroup
has already been answered ten times before that day.
-
Check the FAQs
Check the FAQs to be sure your question is not already
answered there. If you ask a question that gets asked ten times a day that is
already in the FAQs, you will make a very poor first impression, and will likely
get your head bitten off. Most questions asked by newbies have been answered
hundreds of times before.
-
Use groups.google To Find Old Messages
groups.google.com (neé Deja)
archives and indexes all the newsgroups. Check there before asking a question
you think may have any chance would have been answered before. You can even use
Google to post and read messages without a newsreader, using just your browser.
Messages get lost in the rickety NNTP newsgroup protocol. You can find the lost
ones at Google. Unfortunately, no newsreader is yet smart enough to seek them
out for you automatically.
-
Check your email return address configuration
Make sure both the FROM and REPLY-TO
are configured correctly in your newsreader. Dump the antispam modifications to
your legitimate address, e.g. JungleGeorge@a ol.com
You don't want to lose any email responses. It is surprisingly easy for spam
harvesters to undo such techniques. The only hope is to use one no one has every
used before. Send mail to yourself and reply to make sure all is configured
correctly. Unless you can automatically mark all your email duplicate courtesy
copies of your public posts as such, don't send them. They just confuse the
recipient. It you don't want to use your real email address, don't post with a
phony or inaccurate email address unless it is clearly non-functional, e.g. JungleGeorge@NOSPAM.invalid.
The TLD .invalid is specially reserved for
deliberately invalid email addresses. If you make up an obscene name even if
cleverly disguised obscene name, some people won't take you seriously and won't
answer your questions.
-
Be specific in the header
If you just say "Help me puleeez", people won't know they know the
answer to your question and thus may not even read the body. If you can
encapsulate the question in a few words, you will grab the attention of all
those that know the answer. There are way more questions that most people have
time to even read much less answer.
-
Post the code
This is magic. People will go to great lengths to help no matter how awful your
code is. It at least shows you made some effort. Your code often asks your
question far more eloquently than you could in words. It makes abundantly clear
your misconceptions. Cut and paste your complete precise code. If there
any error messages, include them verbatim. If stack traces or error messages
mention a line number, recall that your audience does not have the line numbers.
You will need to annotate. Don't retype anything!!. You may unconsciously
correct errors or introduce new ones in the process. Your transcription typos
will infuriate those trying to help you.
With complete code, people can use compilers and debuggers to help track
your problems, not just their eyeballs. You need enough to run the program, not
just compile it! Further, often the problem is not in the part of the program
you suspect. Do your utmost to get rid of compiler-detectable errors before
posting. See this list of error messages to
figure out what the compiler errors mean. Try to prune your code to the smallest
possible program that still displays the problem before posting. This process
will often help you solve your own problem by gradually whittling away the
distractions and irrelevancies.
SSCCE:
Short,
Self-
Contained,
Compilable,
Example
Polish the code a bit before posting. Indent properly. Follow the proper coding/naming
conventions. Clean out any easy compile errors and typos. Add comments about
what you hoped the code would do and what it appears to be doing. This bit of
extra work will greatly increase your odds of getting a response. If even you
are not prepared to do work on your problem, why should anyone else?
-
The Lutus Objection
Don't just lamely say "My code is broken, please fix it Daddy" as so
many newbies effectively do. Make sure you clearly state:
-
What you expected the code to do. Your readers are not mindreaders. It may be
obvious to you, but it is not to anyone else. It is ok to state the "obvious".
-
What the code did, including the precise complete copy/paste of all error
messages and stack traces. Don't paste partial stack traces or error messages.
Otherwise, by Murphy's law, the interesting part will be in the part you did not
post. No one will chew you out for failing to trim the boring bits.
If you fail to do this, a man named Paul Lutus will publicly chastise you until
you do.
-
Don't expect people to do your homework
Don't post your homework assignment verbatim. Don't
even dare direct quote a phrase from your assignment. You will get you head
bitten off. People will be angry with you for cheating and for your anti-learning
attitude. Ask some specific questions. Post some code, at least the parts
you can do. Demonstrate you have put some effort out already. Playing helpless
just brings contempt. See homework for some hints on
what to do. If you insist on playing helpless, use a female signature, something
that subliminally suggests youth, incompetence and sexual availability, e.g.
Brandi, Sherri, Rykkii or Beertha de Bourbon. There are still suckers for that
lame dodge.
-
Entitlement
Posts of the form "I asked this question a hour ago and I still have not
got an answer. This newgroup sucks." are more likely to get you put in
killfiles that to spur an answer. Get it into your head. You are not entitled to
an answer no matter how badly you may need it. If you receive one, it is because
some stranger decided to give you a gift of his or her time. Everyone who
answers questions is giving you a gift that would you have to pay perhaps
for from a subscription help desk.
-
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth
Nobody owes you an answer, much less a perfect one. Experts volunteer their time
to answer. If you are the least ungracious about an answer, even one that rudely
chastises you for not knowing the answer already, you may find yourself ignored
in future. Newbies are sometimes unspeakably rude when someone points them to a
URL or a FAQ for a detailed answer. Such an answer reduces bandwidth while
simultaneously providing a more detailed and polished response. It never seems
to dawn on the ungracious newbie that everytime they receive a FAQ link as a
response, it is because the question has already been asked hundreds of times
before and the newbie had no business asking it yet again.
Some people spend many hours a day answering newbie questions. They don't have
time to thoroughly analyse every word in every question. They often make wild
guesses at diagnosing the problem based on a few clues in your post and dispense
pat advise that handles most newbie problems. Don't bawl out your responder for
failing to notice the fine nuances of your question. At least he tried to help
you; nobody else did. Just point out tactfully how that advice was not
applicable and ask if, on second look, he has any other recommendations.
When your responder tells you something you already know, don't berate him for
his failure as a mindreader. Consider that he was answering for more than just
your benefit. He may have been intentionally providing background for other
readers.
-
Don't act huffy if someone mistakes your skill level
It is hard to judge in a short post. Sometimes you may get responses over your
head. Other times, your extremely complex question may be mistaken for the
confused ramblings of a newbie. Just politely restate your question in a way
that makes your skill level more obvious. There is no shame in being new. Every
Java programmer was a newbie once. It is often wise to preface questions with
sentences like this when you first start posting in a newsgroup to help people
judge how to phrase their answers:
-
I am a 15 year old student just learning Java.
-
I have been using mostly C++ this last decade and thought I should look into
Java.
-
I'm teaching a course at Harvard on Skurtlwaxian Wrommybuns and wondered if
anyone had any leads one where I could learn more about them. Google came up dry.
-
I've been coding in Java now for since 1993 (I was on the AWT design team), but
this really has me stumped.
-
Public Conversations
Keep in mind that newsgroups are public conversations. If you answer someone's
question, you are also speaking to hundreds of other people. Don't tune your
answer too finely to the original questioner's circumstance, skill or knowledge.
Make sure everyone else can also understand your response. Conversely, don't
act huffy when someone responds with information you already know. He was not
talking just to you.
-
Avoid HTML
Many newsreaders cannot deal with it and those people won't even be able to make
sense of your post. Don't attach graphics or files. Most newsreaders can't
handle these, yet they greatly bulk up your post. Post code inline as text,
preferably with short lines, rather than as attachments.
-
Watch your spelling
If you can't even spell words like "deprecate" correctly, there is a
tendency to dismiss you as less worthy of attention than someone who can. Unless
you spell words correctly search engines are hobbled. People can find your stuff
and you can't find theirs.
-
Ask Where, not How
If you ask where you can find out how to do X, you will get a much better
response than if you ask how to do X. Asking how makes you sound lazy, that you
want others to do your research work for you. A good opening question is "where
can I find the best FAQs for this newsgroup?" You are thus
soliciting opinions on which are most accurate and up to date, information you
could not easily find yourself, or information that would likely be stale if you
did find it.
-
It Is OK To Not Know Something
Don't bawl people out for not knowing something already. It is impossible for
someone to know something without first going through a stage in his life when
he did not know it. Believe it or not, this rule also applies to you. You have
just forgotten you were once just as ignorant. If someone asks a question, give
them the credit for doing something to remedy their ignorance.
-
It Is OK To Ask Questions
Don't bawl people out for asking questions. This is what the newsgroup is for.
If you don't like answering them, don't answer. Posts of the form RTFM Read
The Fucking Manual, enlighten no one. You can make the same
point more palatably by saying "see x" or on page 125 in the book A
ISBN B where it says C, or I fed these keywords to Google and found the
following URLs, or ahem see newsgroups in the Java glossary at http://mindprod.com/jgloss/newsgroups.html.
If people ask seriously off-topic questions, just refer them to the correct
newsgroup. There is no need to lecture them on a first offense.
-
Post your query to only one newsgroup
People who answer questions subscribe to nearly all the newsgroups and are
rather impatient with cross-posters, especially when the cross posts have
nothing whatsoever to do with the charter of the newsgroup. It's rarely
necessary to post to more than one group. If and when you do, please cross-post
(a single article which goes to more than one newsgroup) rather than multi-posting
(multiple articles, all containing the same text, which each go to a different
single group). Multi-posting splits the discussion into the separate groups (so
readers of one group may not see that readers in another have already answered
your question) and means that those who read both groups see the article twice.
See Indiana University for
more information.
-
Don't Ask For A Reply By Email
This will get people quite angry with you. Why?
-
People answer, not just for you but for the benefit of everyone. It makes it
sound if you think yourself worthy of special treatment.
-
If an answer is incorrect, a public answer will be corrected.
-
It implies you are not reading the newsgroup. It implies you are discourteous,
unwilling to take time to learn the conventions of the group, yet demanding it
serve you.
-
The majority of such email replies bounce and are hence totally wasted.
-
Read All the Answers
Read all the answers several times before you post any more questions! It
is amazing how frequently a newbie will ask a follow-on question that is already
answered in one of the responses or in one of the URLs mentioned. It really gets
the responders backs up if it looks as if you did not even bother to read their
responses. They will become actively hostile at the perceived slight. It is easy
to do this if you respond immediately after reading the first response. Read the
rest the rest of the responses first, think about them for a while, then reply.
Otherwise it will look as if you considered the other responses so beneath
contempt you did not even bother to read them or chase the links in them.
-
Avoid Desperation
Saying things like, "I have to have an answer on this within two hours or
my boss will kill me." is likely to be counter productive. Others are not
obligated by your deadlines and will likely resent the implication you don't
appreciate their help as a favour, but consider it an obligation to your majesty.
If you must express your desperation, counter it with some acknowledgement you
have no right to demand a quick answer. Further, people tend to answer as soon
as they read your message anyway, so your desperation can't very well hurry them
up.
-
Primate Psychology
Much of the discussion in newsgroups makes no sense at all unless you understand
it in the context of primate psychology. There are battles for dominance. There
is a pecking order. There are alliance groups. There is a clash of different
styles of humour, particularly in international newsgroups such as these. Just
keep in mind the creators of all the posts are hairless apes and it will make a
lot more sense. The other thing to consider is many of the people on the
Internet are social misfits banished from live company. Here, they are immune to
violent reprisals to their antisocial actions. You can train your newsreader to
just filter these whackos out once you identify them, or you can treat them as
just part of the day's entertainment. Part of the problem comes from expecting
posts, which you read on your computer to somehow me more logical, accurate etc.
than the equivalent live conversations would be. The other problem comes from
reading emotional content into the text. In a live conversation you would hear
the jocularity, where you might read in a severe reprimand emotional tone into
the bald text. You can also mistake brevity for curtness. A one line response
that answers your question is not rude, it is just way of serving more people
per day.
If your newsserver is flaky or does not carry the newsgroups you want, you might
sign up with a commercial service or try 
Last updated 2004-06-28 by Roedy
Green ©1996-2004 Canadian Mind Products
