I’ve seen this become a common occurance. Someone on a mailing list asks a question:
"I’m looking for a good foo written in bar than runs on fee…"
And without a doubt, some helpful soul will post a reponse like:
"Did you search Google for foo bar fee?"
In some cases they even provide a link!
http://www.google.com/search?q=foo+bar+fee
Now I’m sure some people are actually trying to be helpful (and some are just being smart-asses!) But honestly, I figure if people are smart enough to subscribe to a mailing list, they are smart enough to know that search engines exist. (True, some people aren’t actually smart enough to unsubscribe from a mailing list, but we’ll tackle that another day.)
So in the old days, some know-it-all who didn’t want to share their knowledge, or had no knowledge to share, would suggest RTFM, today it’s “Google for an answer” as the response.
My guess is when someone asks about “a good foo written in bar than runs on fee” what they really want are opinions from people about “a good foo written in bar than runs on fee” or perhaps real-world experience about “a good foo written in bar than runs on fee” right?
And if that doesn’t work you can always try Google Groups…