Shaking IT Up: Stalking the Experts

by Kevin Vandever

When I got back to my office, I installed WebSphere Application Sever on the AS/400, learned how to write servlets, and deployed those servlets as little Web applications--all things I hadn't done before, being an RPG guy. Well, as you might have guessed, I had a few questions. OK, I had many questions, but who's counting? I started to dig into the WebSphere manuals, but unfortunately the manuals had yet to be written specifically for the AS/400. They were only available for Windows NT/2000 and Unix platforms, a pattern that continues even today with other IBM products. I looked back at my session handouts I had received from COMMON, searching for some contact information for the speaker. Then I found it: her e-mail address. So I e-mailed her.

To my delight, she responded to my e-mail and answered all of my questions. I now had the information necessary to continue with my project. But as I moved deeper and deeper into the bowels of WebSphere, I had more questions, and since there was not yet any published material specific to the AS/400, I e-mailed her again. This went on for a while. It became like a drug. Soon, I wasn't even attempting to look in the manuals or search the Internet. I would simply slap an e-mail to my personal WebSphere answer woman and wait patiently for my reward. Problem solved.

Then the hammer came down, and my WebSphere drug was confiscated. I received an e-mail from her answering my latest question, but there was more. Wow, had she provided more information anticipating my next question? Had she written that she was thrilled that I was using her IBM product? No. Instead, she explained to me that her answering all my questions bordered on consulting (she was being nice) and that she couldn't continue this relationship--for free--anymore.

I was embarrassed, shocked, and just a little hurt. I had just received the technical equivalent of a "Dear John" letter. I was dumped. I apologized for thoughtlessly taking advantage and told her that I understood where she was coming from. Then I started the long road to recovery, pouring through manuals and researching the Internet for WebSphere information. Every once in a while, I'd get irritable and anxious; sometimes I would experience hallucinations of AS/400-specific information actually showing up in WebSphere manuals. I'd then spark up an e-mail message and start to ask a question, but I would never hit the Send button. I fought it, and now I'm clean. And three or four years later, having written a book and many articles of my own, and having spoken at COMMON myself, I really understand what she was going through with me.

By writing articles and speaking at COMMON, I realize that I need to make myself available to those of you who attempt to implement what I'm writing or speaking about. I'm cool with that. In fact, I have saved hundreds of e-mail messages from programmers, managers, and even executive officers, who have asked very good questions or commented on something I have written. Many of these e-mail messages resulted in excellent technical discussions, philosophical debates, or just plain thank-you responses from me. The problem arises when a reader or session attendee takes it too far, as I did with the IBM developer behind WebSphere. I stepped over the line when I kept hounding her with questions instead of looking things up myself.

As William Shatner said in one of the Airplane movies, "Irony can sure be ironic sometimes." Now I am the one who is hounded by eager programmers looking for answers beyond the scope of a particular article. Maybe it's just karma, but I, too, have been hounded. Maybe I looked at some source code or further explained a specific technique to an IT colleague attempting to implement something I wrote about. Next thing I know, I'm receiving e-mail inquiries only mildly related, and sometimes unrelated, to the original topic of my article. That's fine, too. If I know the answer, I will respond. If I don't, I will pass it along to other editors and authors working with me, to see if one of them can help out. The goal is to help the reader, but not to complete his project.

I usually provide my e-mail address in my articles or in my presentation handouts. That means it's OK to contact me. I try to answer every single e-mail. I don't always do it, but, like the iSeries, I'm probably more than 99 percent reliable. However, I have received phone calls at my day job from folks who have read my articles and want some more information. Now, it's not difficult to find me if you know where I work, and I usually include that information in my bio; still, to have the you-know-what to call me when I included an e-mail address and not my phone number is beyond me. Maybe these folks don't have e-mail, so I always talk to them and try to help them out. I've even called them back when they've left messages, but many times it doesn't end there. Just as I did so many years ago with my e-mail messages, these folks see my day-job phone as the help hotline. Or is it just that they are infatuated with my voice? How do I know?

While I've got your attention, there's something else that really puzzles me: E-mails that take personal shots at me. It's one thing to have someone correct me on a technical issue, or take the opposing side of one of my opinion columns (as will probably happen with this column). I happily accept the feedback and usually enjoy the e-mail discussions. But there are a few out there who take it upon themselves to personally attack me and call me names that would make many of Joe Pesci's characters proud. It doesn't get to me, by the way. I usually laugh and respond back very professionally, but it is a bit alarming to know there are people out there who get that worked up over IT-related issues.

I must say that it is a small minority of people who actually act in such a manner. Most of my correspondence is welcomed, and so are the technical and philosophical discussions that follow. I usually end up learning something valuable from these discussions, as there are a lot of smart IT people out there. It's also great to meet folks at COMMON who have read, and possibly responded to, my articles and shake their hands or grab a couple of beers at CUDS. When I start seeing weird IT-looking folks lurking outside my home or following me to the bathroom at technical conferences, then I will start to worry.