That is one thing I find unusual about this forum, people post a list of program requirements and many people are happy to post complete solutions even though the person asking has shown no effort at all to solve the problem.

Most other forums ( or the forum members anyway ) will not do that. They want to see some effort first. But I find when I ask here: "what have you tried so far?" the other forum members do not respect that request and just post the code.

@KevinDC - that could be due to:
racing to be first OR showcasing one's talent OR compulsive need to code OR wanting to unconditionally help OR none-of-the-above

hehehe.... no disagreement from me. Each forum has a different "personality" to go along with the general forum rules and posting guidelines. This forum is very accomodating, the general membership is quite willing to offer unconditional help. I am sure the people asking the questions really appreciate that, especially the students sitting in class taking a test and getting the answers to the question they don't know.

Sure wish the internet was around back in the dark ages when I went to school.

Arguably, that makes the papers we submitted more "original"

@kevin, @rik
well, think you don't have to get overly concerned about all these. If you are, we might as well ask yourself why people post to a forum questions that can be answered in official manuals or the internet with some simple searching that could get the problem solved in seconds? after a while, you will just ignore this fact, because people still will post simple questions that can be answered in a few seconds will a little bit of digging. therefore, just give the benefit of the doubt, that your post will eventually help the OP (no matter whether he's putting effort or not) in ways, big or small. And that you hope the OP, with your little help, will go a long way on his own from then on. You will also know, whether he's been putting in effort, from his subsequents posts afterwards. Just $0.02.

@ghostdog

Agree - thats why we are here. No offence/concern meant by previous comments - all made in good spirit and to be taken accordingly

naw, I am not overly concerned about it. Just an interesting observation on the differences between forums.