Where have the cgi gone?

[Marc Powell]

Paul L. Allen <mailto:pla at softflare.com> wrote:
> Marc Powell writes:
> 
>> On Friday, January 23, 2004 3:51 PM, Paul L. Allen shared with us:
> 
>>> Hmmm, it generates graphs on-the-fly.
>> 
>> Which makes absolutely no difference if the cgi doesn't exist, as is
>> clearly stated.
> 
> It explains WHY the cgi doesn't exist, to those who bother to think
> about it.  All the CGIs that don't generate graphics on the fly are
> present, all those that do are absent.  Right away, the problem has
> been narrowed down.  We know that all the missing CGIs have property
> X and none of the CGIs which are present have property X.    
> It should not take a genius to figure out that, for some unknown
> reason, there is something about property X which is somehow related
> to those being absent.  

And this user, who is setting up nagios for the first time, is supposed
to go through every possible menu option and link for the cgi's that do
work and discover the thing that they all don't do?? How are they
supposed to know that none of the cgi's that do work don't generate
images 3 levels in? Again, not everyone is as experienced as you
apparently are, especially on a mailling list intended _specifically_
for providing just the kind of help this person was asking for.
Regardless of what you might think, the answers provided on this list
are a direct reflection of the kind of support an end-user can expect
when adopting Nagios, of Nagios itself and of *nix in general. If I had
consistently seen those kinds of responses when I started using Netsaint
several years ago I would have seriously reconsidered. It baffles me how
someone with a .sig of 'Softflare Support' doesn't understand these
kinds of things.
 
>>> And that generates graphs on-the-fly, too.
>> 
>> Ditto.
> 
> Yes, another case of having property X.  Identifying a feature common
> to several problematical items which is not shared by items without
> problems is the first step in the analysis.  Of course, sometimes it
> is a lot more complex than that, where having property X causes
> problems only if it does not have property Y or if it does have
> property Z.  In this case it was nice and simple: all the CGIs that
> generate graphics on the fly are missing; all the CGIs that are
> present do not generate graphics on the fly.       
> 
>>> That one doesn't generate graphs.  But it does generate a status
>>> map, which is a graphic that is created on-the-fly.

How would they know? They can't run it. Again, you presume that the user
fully understands what's going on. As far as they know it could be
generated with VRML, NetPBM, ImageMagick or sprites even. And don't
rebutt that those aren't mentioned in the requirements document. It's
already been established that they didn't read or understand the meaning
of the GD libs or their function.
 
>> Ditto the ditto above.
> 
> Ditto-cubed.
> 
>>> Yes, the documentation can help.  It tells you what libraries you
>>> need in order for certain things to be built.  See if you can guess
>>> what type of library you might be missing before you read through
>>> the documentation.
>> 
>> Now, I'll admit that I am a big fan of 'give them enough information
>> to help them help themselves and learn in the process', but really,
>> there's nothing to take away from this comment that's useful in the
>> least and is actually very condescending.
> 
> It was MEANT to be condescending.  The answer IS in the
> documentation, albeit somewhat obscure.  And by "documentation" I
> mean not only the web docs but also the FAQs, the installation
> instrucions in the tarball, the output of configure --help, etc. 
> These are all places I would have looked before then going on to
> search google for a while.  Only if none of those things turned up an
> answer would I have considered asking here.

Yes, it was very clear that was what you meant. Oh, wait, I have to go
to my second job at the Psychic Friends Network... Yes, in a perfect
world those are all things that should have been done, but it's not a
perfect world, he didn't and this _is_ a support list. To answer
basically 'RTFM' without giving a specific suggestion of where to look
or what to look for is useless, especially with the significant (in a
positive light) amounts of FM to R for Nagios.
      
> Then again, I would have been bright enough to make the connection
> that only the CGIs which generate graphics on the fly had gone
> missing.  I would have looked at the output of the CGIs that worked
> and noticed that they did not generate graphics on the fly.  I would
> have read up on the functionality that was meant to be provided by
> the missing CGIs and realized that they did generate graphics on the
> fly.      
> 
> And if reading and thinking about it hadn't provided me with the
> answer, I'd have done a make clean, then rebuilt while watching the
> output of configure and make like a hawk to see if it complained
> about anything.   
> Which it would have done and given me the answer on the spot.

Again, that's your experience talking. Not everyone has that experience.
Years ago you could have gotten away with expecting that, but with the
golden age of linux upon us that can not be expected any more. More and
more people are using linux which is great, but at the same time, those
people are inexperienced and don't know all the possible things to look
for. It's the long time users like us that have to show them the way,
hopefully in a positive, non-condescending manner so that they don't
have a sour taste in their mouth with regards to everything linux
related.

> This is NOT rocket science, just a bit of careful reading and/or a
> bit of thought.  Installing packages, and reading the docs when
> things go wrong, is meant to be what *nix admins DO.  That's why
> they're *nix admins and MCSE point-and-click monkeys are not *nix
> admins.  Well, that's how it used to be - these days it seems more
> and more people ask questions here because they think the place is
> inhabited by animated paperclips...

But it is rocket science and these people are not all *nix admins. Some
people are playing with linux to see what they can do with it, some are
asked to try it out by their employers without ever having used it
before and others are doing it because Nagios looks so cool and useful.
To those users, it is like rocket science. I'm going to bet that it's a
rare person who is experienced in linux today who didn't have a mentor
to help them with these very types of things. Like it or not, this is a
support list and we _are_ paperclips. This is where people will come and
ask stupid questions and highly intelligent questions. If you feel that
a question is beneath you please, don't answer it and just leave it to
others. I would much rather someone go away with an un-answered question
than the admitted condescending response you gave. It serves no one.

> Do you not think that somebody tasked with installing software that
> monitors operating system performance and network services ought to
> have a slight clue about operating systems and network services?  Or
> is it OK if they think it works by some sort of magic and if anything
> goes wrong they ought to consult a magician?  I have no objection to

I expect an end user to have a basic grasp of those subjects but I do
not expect that they fully understand all the intracacies of a software
package that they are installing for the first time.

> that IF they want to pay the going consultation rates for magicians. 
> If they want help for free then they need to show some signs of
> possibly being able to learn from that help, because otherwise
> they'll just insist on being spoon-fed every step of the way. 

And how exactly did you give this person help or an opportunity to learn
from this help? Your response in a nutshell was 'You're an idiot. I know
exactly what your problem is but you've got to re-read all the 65 pages
of documentation, then the 118 FAQ's, then the README, CHANGELOG and
INSTALLING documents. Even though I could point you to exactly what you
should read to learn how to solve your problem or even tell you to look
up information on "gd", I'm not going to do it because I look down on
you. I'm not even going to tell you what documentation to look in.'
That's exactly what I got out of your response. Normally, I would have
ignored an RTFM response but you took it to the next level, treating
this person like a 5 year old child right off the bat. If you don't like
your role as a Nagios support representative, either don't participate
or only respond to questions that are of a sufficient caliber to engage
your intellect. 
      
> If, after my post, he'd been able to figure out that he was missing a
> graphics library of some sort that would have indicated he wasn't
> totally beyond help and that maybe, just maybe, he would not need
> babying through every step of the way of installing GD on his distro
> in such a way that the missing CGIs would be created.    

All that just so you didn't have to say "You need GD. Look in the FAQ".

--
Marc


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