Has the learning stopped?

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#1

Maybe this is just a rant, maybe this is just a personal opinion.

Whenever I see anyone asking any question most people just expect a .xaml file to be delivered to them, few of them even directly ask for it.

Few of the masters/advanced level users too simply provide a .xaml file instead of showing the path or explaining how to get the issue resolved to get a few solutions marked under their name.

My question here is, has this attitude of both the beginners and masters stopped / changed the learning experience. I personally enjoy reading answers from @lakshman @anil5 and a few others where they explain a path to resolve the issue rather than simply giving an .xaml file.

Does anyone else also share the same feeling like me or am I just over reacting?

P.S.: I apologize in advance to anyone offended by this post.

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#2

Agree, rather put the steps if you think it requires a detail step explanation along with expression

One small reason why i say this is that when, you refer old posts and there is a solution providing only an .xaml file, to see the solution one has to download the file and try and understand what has been done.
Some times posts topics change as we keep reading and its confusing if i was a reader referring. :slight_smile:

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#3

Agreed, teach a man /woman to fish rather than giving them a fish on a plate as the saying goes…

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#4

The problem I see is that there are a lot of non-technical persons trying to use UiPath without having any programming background and without the habit of reading the documentation for both UiPath and Microsoft Visual Basic…

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#5

I understood the sentiment here. But I may offer a view from a different side of the coin.

I am quite new here, but I saw this community as a very diverse one. Some programmers, some bussines peoples, some analysts, and so on. And I see different people has different way to digest things. While most are okay with simple points, there are still a group of new users. They may need extra specific answers, which manifest well in an attached .xaml file. Some other are probably fast learner. It depends.

But still, I would definitely agree that teaching people to fish would benefit more than serving it on a plate.

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#6

I too come from a non - technical background but if I really want to learn I am expected to read the documentation, spend time with it and if I don’t understand something then ask questions.

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#7

this is so true.

#8

Highly agree, I feel it beneficial to give the answer as steps and let the person asking the question figure out how to code it in UiPath.

I feel it is important to also read the question carefully before answering as alot of answers are not directed at the question but the rough topic.

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#9

@loginerror @ovi would you want to share your thoughts here?

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#10

I totally agree that having a well written guide is much better than simply posting the project files. I hope my answers reflect that as well (even though I typically attach the project myself, but always try to do so at the end of a sufficient explanation).

However, the Forum is suuper diverse and newcomers need to still learn this underlying logic with time. I don’t think we can stop it altogether. Having said that, it is up to all of us to help facilitate better “answering culture”.

Also, I am sure many of us solve the issue first for ourselves in Studio and then we have this lying project that we might as well attach for future reference. Ultimately, it is up to the person who wants to learn to ask more questions about something that is not clear in the workflow file (if they are ambitious enough for that) and to the person who posted said workflow to explain the login within.

There will always be a percentage of people who come here just for the solutions. This is not ultimately bad, but from my experience these topics are very often forgotten and never answered. This reflects a bit our attitude towards easy answers in general.

Feel free to suggest solutions how these issues can be remedied :slight_smile: It is quite tricky!

EDIT:
I’ve browsed a while through this link that displays only the solved topics and it doesn’t seem like we (as a community of Forum users) post only the ready answers. I got an initial feel that occasional workflows facilitate a difficult topic more than simply answer it straight away:
https://forum.uipath.com/latest?solved=yes

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#11

And not many people mark the solution. Also, I think moderators should be involved to delete duplicate subjects in order to be able to search quicker for your issue.

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#12

@loginerror

How about giving new joinees a special counter/points. They can ask for a solution (direct xamls ) for a fixed number of times lets say 3-5. Next on, if they ask for solutions they can be reported/penalised

Now… there can be cases where people still need more help. Then make an incentive, that by answering other people’s questions (like marked as solution) you get the ability to ask for direct solutions again

Tie answering a lot of questions, to some reward (not like cash or something as that already exists) but something that would set them apart as well as give them something special (coveted) (like maybe everytime you hit 100 likes you get a coupon or every 10 solutions you get a small online coupon)

This would also encourage forum growth and self learning

Yahoo answers for example did something similar

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#13

Or maybe what we could do is till your last question was marked as solved you cannot post a new question. You can reply to other topics but cannot create a new one till you close your existing question.

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#14

That might lead people to randomly mark answers (newbies) just to be able to ask again. Would mislead people on solutions who land up on these kinds of topic

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#15

I agree, I didn’t think of this.

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#16

Before asking any question its recommended to search in forum, stack overflow or google or msdn website because most of the code is in vb and maximum you will get the answers, its just that we should be having little patience to go through this steps.

For each question or post newly created has an answer and has a detailed explanation, may be in forum, or google or stack overflow or Msdn website or you tube, If you didn’t find anywhere then posts should be created.

I have seen people marking their own post as solutions, if someone has replied on that topic for sure he/she would have benefited from the topic one or the other way, so i think no one should be given an option to mark their post as solution. If they are not happy with the solution it will close after 3 days of last reply.

As @VirajN mentioned many request for xaml files rather than learning of the specifics, it should be recommended that after you create 3 or 4 posts on the topic then only you can attach the xaml file.

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#17

i agree with this.

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#18

Hi everyone. First, I am happy that this topic came around, it means a lot to see this involvement on how to improve the learning and collaboration experience here.

Second, I want to share my own learning path sinceIi started this role on the Forum. When i first joined UiPath I was a QA engineer for Orchestrator so my Studio knowledge in terms of developing was limited. I mostly knew the activities that would interact with Orchestrator. When I took this role (managing the Forum and providing help for all UiPath products) I started with the most simple questions here (the ones on the Rookies category) since I was a rookie myself. Based on what was asked I started to develop in Studio and give the .xaml as a solution. I remember one of my first solutions was a simple sample of how to use invoke code: How to Use Invoke Code :slight_smile: After trying myself how to solve a topic I then started to answer the more advanced questions. I learned a lot from the answers of our now MVPs, back then leaders on the Forum.

I learned the most when I started creating my first Robot in production (with the help of my colleagues from RPA implementation team). At the beginning, when a topic was created, my first question was Did you complete the Foundation training in Academy?. So I thought I could see at a glance if we would have some sort of integration between the Academy and the Forum. So this is how Robo-Forum was created. We have improved it over time and now it’s easier for you to request to be part of the foundation, orchestrator or advanced groups and for us to add you to those groups after the Robot checks your progress in Academy platform. The first version was done with UI Automation and I found out sooner rather than later that it is not that reliable (comparing to how it is implemented now - API calls between the platforms).

TL;DR
What I am trying to say is that I personally don’t know the right answer in this case. Some learn by doing, others by following a template (in our case xaml files) but I think we can find a balance. In this case, having xaml files may bring value short term. As you mentioned above in this thread, one of the best practices is to search before you post. We all know that not everyone does that and we cannot really force people to do so (maybe they need an answer/solution on their specific app, maybe they are having a bad day and they are not so patient or whatever reason). But having only the xamls as solutions, long term can bring more questions (and even errors when trying to run it) as the UiPath versions become incompatible, new features are released etc.

Thanks again for bringing this up! :bowing_woman:

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#19

We can still use XAML files to solve the topic. However, we should at least treat it as the last resort.
Giving XAML files have an upside and downside. Not all users are techies. Some find it hard to navigate to the Studio and some just don’t know how to structure their configuration.
I think the learning will not stop simply because of giving XAML files as solutions. Those users that use the XAML file will have a better understanding of how it works. So what will happen is they will not be having a hard time doing that configuration in the future. They will likely to have a rather complicated problems, issues or roadblocks the next time they will consult the community. Since that is the statement, the learning did not stop because there is PROGRESS :slight_smile:
Thanks!

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#20

Right. And it is also important to write the question carefully as sometimes questions are too general without any details to allow any reasonable advice. :frowning:

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