Of course you're right, this is about helping others -- no question. However I do think that Grinder makes a good point in that without seeing at least some snippet of source code the person has written it makes it a lot more difficult to help.

That said, if a person posts that they are stumped on a problem and need a nudge to get started, then that's a different story.

I've had, what I perceiced, as negative responses to things I've posted, but I start with the assumption that the person is having or had a bad day and I got in the line of fire.

If someone does want to argue Usenet is the perfect place to get in to a pissing match and the perl newsgroups are full of the RTFM crowd which, IMHO does nobody any good.

That's what I love about here. You can get help for your code problems, but it does help to post some code.

Some people fall from grace. I prefer a running start...