>if a student expects to be taught everything,
>they will always be unsatisfied.

Although you did explicitly mention that this may not pertain to the original post, I want to mention that although this is true, it in fact does not pertain to the original post in that (in my opinion again) what the student wanted from his professor was far too elementary to be left out. I do want to agree with you regarding the comment about the simplicity of a lot of questions in this forum, especially considering it is on a website called codeguru.developer.com! The way people perform best when learning is not limited in the least, and although you may have been able to learn well out of the book (even if it did involve frustration), that frustration may have a greater load bearing on another student who will not perform as well under the same conditions. Good discussion!

Jason