Monday, September 22, 2014

Re: unbalanced parenthesis

Russ,

+100

Thanks!

Mark aka Matt  ;)


On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 5:02 PM, Russell Keith-Magee <russell@keith-magee.com> wrote:
HI Ngangsia,

Mark directed you at Google because your usage of this list is extremely consistent with someone who *hasn't* tried to solve their own problem first.

Put yourself in our shoes. We don't know you. We don't know what you know, and what you don't know. What answer would you like us to provide to the question you originally asked? 

Your original email said nothing more that "I got this error, please help". Your original email doesn't include code we can correct. We don't know if you're new to programming, or an experienced programmer who knows another programming language but is new to Python/Django. It doesn't indicate that you've done some research, and still don't understand what the error means. It doesn't indicate what in particular is causing you difficulty, other than the fact that you've got an error message.

The only information we can provide you is exactly what you'd find in a Google search - a dictionary definition of what "unbalanced parentheses" means. And it's not like the error message is cryptic - "Unbalanced parentheses" means your parentheses are unbalanced. Somewhere, you've got an open parenthesis, but not a close (or a close without a matching open). 

Or is the problem here that you don't know what a parenthesis is? Is the problem a language barrier? Is English not your native language, and as a result, you don't know what a parenthesis is? We don't know - because you haven't told us.

On top of this, you've posted a *lot* of these requests recently - one line questions saying "how do I fix this error", without providing any context. This is behaviour that is entirely consistent with someone who is new to programming, and hasn't worked out the most important thing about programming - how to ask the right question. The interesting thing is that once you work out how to ask the right question, that the answers to most of those questions can be found with a Google search. 

What Matt was trying to do is try and put you in our position. We're volunteers. We want to help you. But if you want good help, you need to ask good questions. Throwing every error message you receive at django-users with no context or explanation doesn't help us to help you.

My suggestion - take a couple of hours to read *other* messages on django-users. You might not understand the answers (or even the questions) - but you will hopefully get a feel for how to ask an effective question on mailing lists - what sort of information you need to provide in order to get a helpful answer. And this isn't a Django-specific thing either - it's a skill that will serve you well in any programming mailing list - or, for that matter, any mailing list on any topic.

Yours,
Russ Magee %-)

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:49 PM, ngangsia akumbo <ngangsia@gmail.com> wrote:
Please don't tell me to use google because i dont post here without google for a solution

On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 4:36:40 PM UTC+1, mark wrote:
There is no way anyone can help you with this limited information. 


2. Always use Google first before posting a question. Look at the error message - the package re threw the exception with the message of "unbalanced parenthesis". You are working in python. Google will hep you - search on "python re unbalanced parenthesis" - 278,000 hits. Lots of information to help track down the problem. Ignore the misspelling of parenthesis....

3. If you are still confused, then post the relevant code snippets and what you have done to solve the problem and what you do not understand. 

If all of the above does not work, then send me at least three bitcoins and I will look at your code to find the problem.....just kidding. The point is that no one in the forum is paid to solve your problems, so be respectful of everyone's ****donated time**** and make the effort to (1) solve your own problem first and (2) then ask very specific questions.

Mark

On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 8:14 AM, ngangsia akumbo <ngan...@gmail.com> wrote:

i dont understand what is going on i need some help


error at /admin/

unbalanced parenthesis
Request Method:GET
Request URL:http://localhost:8000/admin/
Django Version:1.4.3
Exception Type:error
Exception Value:
unbalanced parenthesis
Exception Location:/usr/lib/python2.7/re.py in _compile, line 244
Python Executable:/usr/bin/python
Python Version:2.7.6
Python Path:
['/home/yems/apps/project1',   '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages',   '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django_mptt-0.6.0-py2.7.egg',   '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pytz-2014.7-py2.7.egg',   '/usr/lib/python2.7',   '/usr/lib/python2.7/plat-i386-linux-gnu',   '/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-tk',   '/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-old',   '/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload',   '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages',   '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PILcompat',   '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gst-0.10',   '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtk-2.0',   '/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7',   '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ubuntu-sso-client',   '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/wx-2.8-gtk2-unicode']
Server time:Wed, 17 Sep 2014 16:13:15 +0100

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