The Internet is a sewer.
The Internet is the best learning tool since the invention of language.
Internet forums are toilets.
Internet forums are the best way to get help on any subject.
Wait just a cotton-picking minute! Which is it? Are they a sewer/toilet or the best thing ever…? Well, IMHO they are both.
Yes, you will get flamed
You will find many very helpful folks on the Internet, and you’ll find some that are just plain bat-poop crazy and evil. I am not referring to any forum in particular, but I just want to warn you that you need to disconnect your ego before using these resources.
I have several friends who are robot enthusiasts who all agreed that they wouldn’t use my favorite forum (I won’t name names here) because they are afraid of getting flamed. I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, “Well, just hitch up your big-girl panties and get used to it. You want help on the Internet? You might get flamed and you might get help. But you sure as heck won’t get help trembling in fear at the keyboard.” There are folks on every forum who like to flame people. I even get so exasperated that I will occasionally get out my flame-thrower. But the thing to remember is that nobody actually knows you. You are no more a real person on the Internet to some people, than a random character in a video game.
Google ‘Internet disinhibition’ if this topic really interests you, but the take-home point is that some folks on Internet forums can be vicious while other’s are nearly saints in there helpfulness, but none of it is aimed at you personally.
Wikipedia on Online Disinhibition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect
These problems are so common that folks who go around trying to make trouble have their own name: Troll. I have to admit that I sometimes get really annoyed at the jerks and I want to blast back, but that is exactly what they want, they thrive on being blasted and wither from being ignored. So my rule is that the only way to deal with a response that causes you to get emotional is to ignore it. More formally:
If you respond to a Troll you are a Troll.
So if you feel you must blast back, go ahead and write the response, but don’t send it unless your goal is to make the guy happy. If you want to hurt him, just erase the message and don’t respond. It won’t be easy, but it will demonstrate that you are the better human.
But what if I really do something stupid?
Some folks like to say: ‘there are no stupid questions.’ Well how stupid is that? Of course there are stupid questions. I’ve asked stupid questions and the responses I’ve gotten, harsh as they were, helped me to ask not so stupid questions. Chances are also pretty good that you’ll mess up and do something that even a reasonable member of a forum will feel obliged to take a smack at you. Oh well… you may feel embarrassed, but you’ve learned something and should feel proud that you are hanging in and learning to use these resources. To lessen the likelihood that you’ll embarrass yourself, PLEASE READ:
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
This is a great resource gathered over many years and contains the collected wisdom of many good folks who have learned to deal with these sorts of problems.
AVRFreaks.net
This is my preferred forum. After all, much of my writing is related to the Atmel AVR and this is the official website. But it is lightly moderated so everything I said above is true, sometimes abysmally true. However, before you start PLEASE READ:
Newbie? Start Here! http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=70673
Getting help from me.
I think it benefits the community to keep all technical questions public. I have chosen www.AVRFeaks.net to respond to questions so that if someone else has the same question they might find it by searching that forum, using Google, by entering your search terms and following it with site:www.avrfreaks.net. For instance if you have a problem with the Butterfly serial communications, you would enter:
“AVR butterfly serial communications site:www.avrfreaks.net”
Then read the results to see if your question has already been answered.
Doing this also benefits you since there are people available 24/7 who might answer your question well before I even see it.
I follow threads with certain keywords in the title: avrtoolbox, butterfly, Arduino, and Smiley’s Workshop. I might miss a query without one of these words.