4 ms·
Is there a better way to phrase that question?
by selestify 6y ago
Is there a better way to phrase that question?
- irrational 6y agoHave you considered installing GNU coreutils via brew et. al?
- rocqua 6y agoThat is a great way to give the suggestion. It is not a great way to check what the reasons are why they did not. Something like "Have you considered installing GNU coreutils? If so, I wonder what made you choose not to" might do the job. But really "Any reason why you didn't install GNU coreutils via brew" seems to directly ask the question. It can come across a bit passive aggressive. But I don't think we should concede clear questions to passive aggresiveness.
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago"I would have gone with (installing MSDOS), what were your reasons for going the other way?"
- selestify 6y agoWhat if, as a junior developer, you don’t have an opinion either way and just want to know how they do things?
- lifeisstillgood 6y agoEveryone has reasons - from "that's what the code I pasted from StackOverflow did" to "this is what the standards doc I wrote decided upon after months of rewriting" Forcing you to examine your reasoning usually results in better understanding
- selestify 6y agoAh, what I had meant was in response to: > I would have gone with (installing MSDOS) what if the person asking the question wouldn’t have gone with any approach in particular? Do you find it more polite to suggest an approach nonetheless?
- lifeisstillgood 6y agoYeah there is almost always a better way then "you idiot no one would do that." There needs however to be some Venn diagram overlap in ability and understanding - the discussion starts where you and they have a common shared understanding of the code and you then expand their circle a little. Its painful and usually waaay easier to call people an idiot, so its important to pay people to be teachers.