Originally Posted by grumpy

There's an old chinese proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime". By giving a noob something he can use, you're only giving him the fish and he'll need another one tomorrow --- and, eventually, people will give up and stop giving him fish. What people with experience tend to do is give pointers to noobs so they can learn how to fish --- if they are willing to think about the advice, question it, challenge it, adapt it, etc etc. That is the only way we can encourage beginners to -- eventually -- be more skilled than we are. If everyone was just to give beginners something they can use (i.e. that is within our limits) those beginners might match us, but will never be more skilled than we are.