July 30th, 2007

There's a whole Internet out there, folks, you might want to check it out

If you’re going to add a topic to the Suggestion Box,¹ at least do the courtesy of researching the question before asking it. It takes me an hour to answer each question; it’s only fair that you spend ten minutes making it a good question. For example, one entry in the Suggestion Box asked for the story behind the MANUALLY_INITIATED_CRASH hotkey. But even the most cursory search on the Internet for the phrase manually initiated crash reveals as the #1 hit an explanation of the circumstances under which you would want to enable this feature in the first place. As another example, one commenter asked where I got the grayscale conversion formula from, but a few minutes of tinkering with a search engine will reveal all sorts of articles on grayscale conversion. (Heck, that’s how I found the formula in the first place!) Generally speaking, I just ignore questions that are poorly-researched, but I felt the need to call out the issue in the first place so you can understand why I ignored your question. Footnote

¹Yes, the Suggestion Box is closed for now, since it’s got enough suggestions to last me for years. If your suggestion is that totally awesome, then you will surely remember it when the Suggestion Box reopens in early 2010.

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Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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