Ask me a question - I'll try to find the answer.

This morning I reached an old Hanselminutes (Number 115) sub-titled "Finding Passion for Software". Now I've not finished listening to this yet, but something about the early topics in the conversation made me want to post.

I hang in the DevExpress "IDE Tools" Forums (way more that my wife would like) helping anyone who wanders in with a question.

But it occurs to me that when learning a new Tech of any kind, sometimes there'll be a question or 2 that seem like the answer should be really obvious and so people decide not to ask for fear of looking foolish.

This is a great shame.

I want to make one thing abundantly clear...

...There is no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid answers (which btw you should tell me about, it's the only way I'll learn :P)
...I'm happy to help - Do you have a question regarding CodeRush, RefactorPro or the Black Magic that is the DXCore?

Seriously.. ask me....

Do you want to know...
...How to make a template to do X?
...How to add a "Selection Embedding" to CodeRush?
...What the F*** is a "Selection Embedding"? :P
...How to write a plugin to do X? (<- I really like this question. The last few times it was asked, I replied with fully functional example. I usually throw them up on The Community Plugin Site)
...Why doesn't X work?
...Is X a bug or am I just not understanding the idea behind Y?
...How do I write a Refactoring of my own?
...What is a Refactoring anyway?
...What is a "Code" Item?
...Can I create those too?
...How does "Code" Items differ from "Refactor" Items on that clever SmartTag menu thingy?
...What SmartTag Menu thingy? What the F** are you talking about?
...Are you doing drugs you sound a little insane? (Only Alcohol and Caffeine btw )
...What is a StringProvider?
...What is a TextCommand?
...What is a Field? (In the CodeRush sense)
...How many Experimental plugins are you playing with? (I have projects started for at least 8)

There are many questions you can ask. Like I said *none* of them are stupid.

Ok perhaps there is.... if you say "How do I write a plugin to do X?" without replacing *X*, then yeah, that's stupid. :P
But it takes that level of question to reach "Stupid"

The best place to ask me a question by far, is in one of the DevExpress "IDE Tools" Forums, but I will accept questions in the comments here or you can email me at RoryBecker[at]Gmail[dot]com.

I work 9-5 GMT(BST at the moment) and so can be a little slow to answer during this time but I'll try anyway.

Don't think that because you're a CodeRush/RefactorPro/DXCore newbie, that this is a bad thing.

Newbies are cool! They challange me to re-explore the stuff I thought I already knew. It's always worth doing that as more often than not I discover something I didn't know before. After all the IDE Tools are a moving target because DevExpress keep making them better :)

So go ahead..... Ask me a question. :)