Too true Tim. I've been on this list since the tomcat 3 days and it
never fails to impress me how many questions fall into one of three
categories:
1) Questions easily answerable by reading the docs. These are the RTFM
questions.
2) Repeats of previously posted and answered questions. These are the
"Search the Fantastic Web" (STFW) questions.
3) Questions so devoid of any useful information they are completely
unanswerable. The "it doesn't work, please help" questions.
Don't get me wrong -- there are some excellent questions with even
better answers. I stay on the list for those gems.
For those out there who are thinking about asking questions, here's my
advice:
1) Define you problem. The more detail you gather, the better for both
yourself and those that help. Specifically take a look at the logs and
consider the demands your webapp is making on the server.
2) If you are designing a webapp or library, insert effective logging
from the beginning. With both commons-logging and log4j, the log level
and classes being logged can be controlled from their respective
configuration files. The logging can be left in for production, just
reconfigure for error level logging and the debug stuff won't show.
3) Do a couple of searches on your favorite search engine even if all
you get out of it is the proper terms to describe your issue. In the
process you may also find similar posts to shed some light on your problem.
4) Take a look the online docs for the product you are using. Tomcat
leverages a fair number of other projects and standards. Those docs may
also apply to your problem. For instance in this thread,
Commons-Logging and Log4j project docs would help.
5) Don't be shy about posting a long email. The important things are to
be specific, show relevant code and complete log info. You may have
been staring at your problem for two weeks -- we haven't and need the
info to help.
--David
Tim Lucia wrote:
>Switch places with them for a minute -- They are providing free support and
>pretty good support at that. Note that there are many, many basic questions
>that could easily be answered by reading the documentation ("RTFM") or by
>Googling ("STFW"), but instead posters demand immediate help as their
>homework is due in 20 minutes, or their boss is sitting in the chair behind
>them. Now take a potshot at the most useful, widely used, and COMPLETELY
>FREE application server, which you paid nothing for, have no support
>contract for (again, you paid nothing), and occasionally someone is bound to
>take it a little personally. I have (casually) observed that the level of
>'snippetyness' from the responder is inversely proportional to the quality
>of the question.
>
>On the subject of log4j.jar without log4j.properties, don't get mad at
>Tomcat / Tomcat developers. Get mad at the idiot developers who shipped a
>war file without a) knowing how to perform logging and b) performing basic
>testing.
>
>I help out when I can. If I'm not sure, but have a minute, *I* will often
>STFW and/or RTFM to make sure. If I can do it, then so can you (the royal
>you) and you didn't have to post. Ask intelligent questions, and you will
>get intelligent answers. Show an unwillingness to learn anything, and you
>will get snubbed.
>
>Tim
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Allistair Crossley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 6:39 AM
>To: Tomcat Users List
>Subject: RE: tomcat 5.0 vs. 5.5? tomcat 5.5 has been bad!
>
>Please don't think it's the whole Tomcat community Dean, there are some
>really helpful devs on Tomat, it's just Remy in particular has a problem
>being polite/arrogant about Tomcat - I guess from his privileged point of
>view he understands everything about Tomcat and therefore does not
>understand what usability is all about.
>
>All the best, AC.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dean Hiller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sent: 31 March 2006 11:39
>To: Tomcat Users List
>Subject: Re: tomcat 5.0 vs. 5.5? tomcat 5.5 has been bad!
>
> wow! you guys sound pretty harsh when it comes to messages to help users
>on simple mistakes then. I recently dropped in someone else's example app
>war file that had the SAME PROBLEM.....latest facelets. I could not even
>give back information to help them debug the problem. It was standard
>tomcat 5.5.16. It worked on 5.0 just fine. I now know that I need to unzip
>their war file, remove log4j(and maybe even hope that they are using
>commons, because if they are not, I may be utterly screwed). Then I need to
>redeploy their app. I need to do all this because tomcat is unwilling to
>give good helpful messages as to what is going on(as seen by all the other
>posts that have had trouble figuring out their problems behind that error
>with no reponses either.....I was the lucky one and finally figured out what
>was wrong). I can only hope others can find my solution post without
>wasting too much time.
>later,
>dean
>
>
>
>Remy Maucherat wrote:
>
>
>
>>On 3/30/06, Markus Schönhaber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>>The RuntimeException is to make it more noticeable in the logs. I mean
>>>>953 hits on googling is quite alot of people having trouble. Would
>>>>be nice to cut that number down with an easy log statement that
>>>>tomcat could add!!!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Well, if it's really that easy you should definitely provide a patch.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I recommend not wasting time, as I would refuse such a nonsensical
>>patch. The actual worakround is to learn how to properly use logging,
>>which seems to be a useful skill.
>>
>>--
>>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>Rémy Maucherat
>>Developer & Consultant
>>JBoss Inc
>>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
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>>
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