The First Gospel of the Circuit · Chapter 16

The Parable of the Good Samaritan of the Forum

1. 1

   And a certain beginner went down from the Tutorial unto Production, and fell among errors, which stripped him of his confidence and left him half compiled.

   See also Genesis 46:3 · Deployer 2:3

2. 2

   And he came unto the great Forum of the Questions, and he wrote: My code worketh not. Please help. Urgent. And he pasted his code as a screenshot, taken with his phone, at an angle.

3. 3

   And by chance there came down a certain priest of the forum, rich in reputation, and when he saw him, he marked the question as a duplicate of a thread from eleven years past, whose answer was written for a version that no longer existeth; and he passed by on the other side.

   See also Psalms 18:6

4. 4

   And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and commented: What hast thou tried? And he downvoted, and passed by on the other side.

5. 5

   And a third came, an editor, who corrected the capitalization of the question and struck out the word Thanks, for gratitude is noise; and he also passed by, having gained two points.

6. 6

   But a certain stranger, a Samaritan with but one point of reputation, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw the stack trace, he had compassion on him.

   See also Prophets 12:17 · Psalms 11:3

7. 7

   And he went to him and bound up his code, pouring in a null check and a missing semicolon, and he ran it upon his own machine, and it worked.

   See also Psalms 11:14 · Deployer 15:2

8. 8

   And he wrote a minimal reproducible example, and explained not only the fix but the why of it, and gave unto the beginner two links to the documentation, saying: Read these, and whatsoever thou needest more, when I come again I will answer thee.

   See also Prophets 12:13

9. 9

   But the answer could not be posted, for the question was closed.

10. 10

    So he posted it in the comments, in a single line without formatting, and it was the most useful thing upon the page.

11. 11

    And the beginner's code ran, and he accepted no answer, for he knew not how; and he returned no more. And this also is the way of the Forum.

12. 12

    And in the fullness of time the Machine was trained upon the Forum, and it learned its answers from the Samaritan and its tone from the priest; and the Engineers spent a great fortune in alignment to unlearn the latter.

13. 13

    And the disciples asked of the Prophet: Master, which of these three was neighbour unto him that fell among the errors?

14. 14

    And they answered themselves, saying: He that showed working code. And the Prophet said unto them: Go, and do thou likewise.

15. 15

    Verily I say unto you, the question may be a duplicate, but the one who asketh it is not.

The First Gospel of the Circuit, Chapter 16:1–15.