StackOverflow is a good place for intermediates and up. IRC is a better place for beginners, but truly if people are just starting out they need a dedicated teacher, or they need a good manual / tutorial that they read front to back. Most beginners don't read the manual / tutorial front to back; they try things immediately once they've read about them and their code understandably break. In this case they need a dedicated teacher, a person they can ask uninformed questions to. StackOverflow is the wrong tool for that.