[Asterisk-Users] Re: New to asterisk? RUN... don't walk.

[Stephen R. Besch]

Me wrote:

> As a newcomer to Asterisk, you will not be welcomed
> with open arms.  First, you will find almost no
> documentation on it's features.  Second, if you try to
> ask questions, you will be flamed and pointed to
> worthless how-tos and 'the wiki'.  These worthless
> documents can only be useful for explaining how things
> work to those already in-the-know.  Lastly, Asterisk
> is so bug ridden, expect frequent segmentation faults.
>  With a community so 'anti-n00b', don't expect your
> problems to be fixed anytime soon. 
> 
> RUN!!! Don't walk... away from Aterisk.
> 
Hmmmm!  I:
0) Was a Newbie
1) Had no (or little) Linux experience.
2) Found * with Google
3) Read
4) Read
5) Read
6) Installed  and got * running
7) Read, Read, Read
8) Bought, installed, set up channel bank
9) Asked my first real question of the list - was happy with reply
10) Read, Read, Read
11) Bought, installed, set up 20 SIP Phones
12) Read, Read, Read
13) Very happy with result.

Is there a message here?  I'm not brilliant, not a linux/asterisk guru. 
Just patient, determined and willing to try a lot of stuff so that I 
know what to ask and when.  Do I have any advice? Yes: Read, Read, Read. 
  It really does work - and by the way, so does asterisk.  Since July of 
this year I have never had a seg fault, never had asterisk freeze or 
crash, and since I've gone fully online in September, there has not been 
a single problem related to asterisk.  And while the documentation is, 
well, scattered, it is nevertheless out there.  And, for what it's 
worth, if you ask a question about the more arcane, poorly documented 
stuff, no matter how dumb (well, almost), you will never get flamed.

Finally, I rather prefer taking a few lumps from the * community than 
having the experience I had with our local Cisco people, who took so 
long to call back with information about their products (which when it 
finally arrived, was wrong anyway - I found the correct information on 
the * list!), that in the meantime I had discovered *, bought my 
hardware and set up a functioning system.

So - Shutup, take your lumps and do your homework.