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>You ask a complex question and they ask you why you're doing it. How is that alienating?

by crdoconnor 11y ago

Armisael16 11y ago
Being dismissed or interrogated for every single question you ask is certainly alienating.
- denis1 11y ago
  Maybe, but 'why are you doing it?' is a very relevant question. And imo should be the first question to be asked. Knowing why you're trying to achieve something will allow people to provide alternate ideas instead of fixating on the narrow context that you've set.
Zikes 11y ago
Many times I've seen that it's been out of a genuine desire to solve the asker's problem, but the asker has already started down the wrong path and is determined to see it through. A recent example: someone was using a map/hash object to store a series of documents, and needed a way to extract N items from the map for pagination reasons. They presented a for loop but said that something "felt wrong" about that. Many of the comments were about how maps had no guarantees about order, and that each attempt to grab a "page" of objects would result in a random set, meaning pages 1, 2, and 3 could all conceivably have common items, rendering pagination fundamentally broken. There were several suggestions to use an ordered array of map keys, but the asker was determined, stating "it's just for testing purposes, order doesn't matter, I should never have mentioned pagination". Maybe there's an important detail that the asker left out, but by all accounts they were given sound advice and even working examples, but they still seemed frustrated and would likely describe the experience as "alienating".
- collyw 11y ago
  Its not always the wrong path, but the only path available to you if you have a complex system. You could do as the alternatives suggest, but you know that will affect some other part of your system. The reasons for needing a particular soluition aren't always available without more context.
  - Zikes 11y ago
    Without having an ordered array of keys there's just no safe way to paginate a map. The map's own documentation says that key order has no guarantees, making it effectively random. It really is a silo'd issue, I can't even imagine what other factor could change the above facts without resorting to unsafe memory access.
jchendy 11y ago
Presumably OP felt like the "why are you doing this?" response came with an implication that they shouldn't be doing it.
fossuser 11y ago
In my experience it's not so much a genuine "let's take a step back and see if this is the right approach". It's more of a condescending "Why are you even doing THAT" (because the person doesn't actually know the answer). You see this kind of problem in person too with people who feign surprise over you not knowing something when asking a question so they can act like they're much smarter, but they're really just insecure about what they know. "You don't know what X is?!" This is toxic, but in real life the best approach is to just reiterate you don't know and ask. This usually reveals the person claiming to be surprised doesn't actually know either (or if they do you can at least quickly learn something). This doesn't work as well with an online community though and people usually just leave it.

>You ask a complex question and they ask you why you're doing it. How is that alienating?

Armisael16 11y ago

Being dismissed or interrogated for every single question you ask is certainly alienating.

denis1 11y ago
Maybe, but 'why are you doing it?' is a very relevant question. And imo should be the first question to be asked. Knowing why you're trying to achieve something will allow people to provide alternate ideas instead of fixating on the narrow context that you've set.

Zikes 11y ago

Many times I've seen that it's been out of a genuine desire to solve the asker's problem, but the asker has already started down the wrong path and is determined to see it through. A recent example: someone was using a map/hash object to store a series of documents, and needed a way to extract N items from the map for pagination reasons. They presented a for loop but said that something "felt wrong" about that. Many of the comments were about how maps had no guarantees about order, and that each attempt to grab a "page" of objects would result in a random set, meaning pages 1, 2, and 3 could all conceivably have common items, rendering pagination fundamentally broken. There were several suggestions to use an ordered array of map keys, but the asker was determined, stating "it's just for testing purposes, order doesn't matter, I should never have mentioned pagination". Maybe there's an important detail that the asker left out, but by all accounts they were given sound advice and even working examples, but they still seemed frustrated and would likely describe the experience as "alienating".

collyw 11y ago
Its not always the wrong path, but the only path available to you if you have a complex system. You could do as the alternatives suggest, but you know that will affect some other part of your system. The reasons for needing a particular soluition aren't always available without more context.
- Zikes 11y ago
  Without having an ordered array of keys there's just no safe way to paginate a map. The map's own documentation says that key order has no guarantees, making it effectively random. It really is a silo'd issue, I can't even imagine what other factor could change the above facts without resorting to unsafe memory access.

jchendy 11y ago

Presumably OP felt like the "why are you doing this?" response came with an implication that they shouldn't be doing it.

fossuser 11y ago

In my experience it's not so much a genuine "let's take a step back and see if this is the right approach". It's more of a condescending "Why are you even doing THAT" (because the person doesn't actually know the answer). You see this kind of problem in person too with people who feign surprise over you not knowing something when asking a question so they can act like they're much smarter, but they're really just insecure about what they know. "You don't know what X is?!" This is toxic, but in real life the best approach is to just reiterate you don't know and ask. This usually reveals the person claiming to be surprised doesn't actually know either (or if they do you can at least quickly learn something). This doesn't work as well with an online community though and people usually just leave it.