Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ulysses!hector!jss
From: jss@hector.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: A plea for restraint
Message-ID: <11601@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Date: 26 May 89 15:52:16 GMT
Sender: netnews@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com
Reply-To: jss@hector.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz)
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 22

Please, please, please double check your answers to questions.
Recently there have been a rash of incidents where a beginner posts a
question and answer is posted that appears to have been from another
beginner and is completely wrong.   As a consequence, instead of
getting a couple of answers to the original question we see a flood
of followups to the wrong answer. This is understandable, since many
people feel it is more important to correct a wrong assertion in this
group than to answer a question.

I am not accusing anybody of behaving badly, I am sure that all
posters have good motivations.  But I urge you to either verify your
answers by running a test, or looking up a reference. Rely on your
"understanding" only if you are really a world class C expert, and
even then only if you are not posting under conditions of sleep
deprivation.

Think of posting to comp.lang.c as getting up in the front of a
filled 5,000 seat auditorium.  Doesn't that make you want to
spend a little time preparing? 

Jerry Schwarz
AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill