Russell McMahon wrote:
> That's an extremely common position of yours. Really.
> You seem to enter a thread at some intermediate point and expect
> everything to be self explanatory for you from that point on, without
> you needing to look back to make sense of the overall situation.
> Really (again).

I was referring to the original post.  I didn't notice there was code
attached.  I looked in the archives to see why.  I'm not saying it's right,
but I think what happened was I tuned out once he started asking questions
because it seemed to me he was probably having a misconception about UARTs
having clocks.  Questions about the clock therefore didn't matter.  What I
didn't notice was what looked like the third question visually was actually
a statement of source code and the schematic.  Oh well.

The reason I say I probably wouldn't have looked at the code anyway has
nothing to do with this OP and this question.  Mostly I don't like looking
at other's code.  I'm more interested in the concepts than the actual
implementation, unless that happens to be the specific issue.  The code was
also in C, which I really dislike looking at.  That doesn't make C wrong or
the OP wrong for posting C, but it's a level of hassle and other "support"
issues I don't usually want to get into when providing free advice.

I also don't like following attachments to see source code.  It's one more
thing to do.  Granted, not a hard thing, but I usually just don't feel like
it.  Usually people who provide code in a attachment do so because they are
dumping the whole file on us "there's a bug in here somewhere, go fish".
I'm a lot more willing to look at code when the OP has taken the time to
create a small test case that exhibits the problem and shows the relevant
part.  When that's done, it's usually small enough to be included in the
body of the post, properly formatted of course.  Attached code is sortof a
first pass "the OP didn't try hard enough" test.  Sometimes there is good
reason to attach code.  Oh well, no filter is perfect.  When a attachment is
really needed, it's usually obvious from other things in the post.  In this
case there was no such evidence, so I probably would have skipped it even if
I had noticed it.

I also don't like having to explain all the above.  It's way way easier to
just skip something that smells like a rathole, aggrevation, slighlty more
hassle, etc.  Some of it is dependent on whim and what else I have in front
of me to do that momement.

Again, I'm not saying the OP did anything wrong (and didn't say that earlier
if you read carefully) and this is not about telling anyone how they should
post, only explaining how I approach these things.  I know my system isn't
perfect.  You can decrease my pay by 20% if you don't like how I process
these things.


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