Except the culture of gyms, at least among most people to spend a lot of times at gyms and take fitness seriously, is to be helpful and charitable to others. Almost everybody I know who does any weight-lifting or anything related is always more than happy to help a n00b out if they have time.
Refusing to help someone if you're literally too busy is one thing. But a blanket attitude of "I'm not here to help you, ever, under any circumstances" is a pretty dick'ish position by the standards of many gym regulars. Of course it's your right to refuse anybody you want...
I guess what I was trying to say is if you were in the middle of a set and someone asked you for help I would be more understanding to the person being asked if they were annoyed about being bothered.
On the other hand you have to go out of your way to be an asshole on stack overflow, and yet it happens all the time. No one is demanding your attention or interrupting your code time to respond to a post on SO, and yet so many know it alls cannot help themselves by taking a swipe at the person posting a question. I just hate that attitude.
Maybe I should spend more time reading questions on SO and posting helpful responses.
Fair enough. There is an etiquette to things at the gym as well, and it may take a while to pick up on some of that stuff. Which is, I guess, the same as the Internet in some ways.
"Can you help me understand why this doesnt work?"
...is very different from...
"It looks like you know what you are doing, fix this for me."
..even though the outcomes are often very similar.
However 2 things - #1 the bile you have for those asking for help is off-putting. #2 It takes more effort for someone to respond to a question and tell them off than it does to ignore it. And some of us in the programmer community would rather take the time to make a derogatory comment instead of either ignoring the comment or actually helping that person. THAT is the sign of a bully.