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Surely you can ask the question, continue working, and then if the question becomes moot come back and either delete the original or leave a new message that sa
by anaerobicover 6y ago
Surely you can ask the question, continue working, and then if the question becomes moot come back and either delete the original or leave a new message that says "never mind, found it!".
- lisper 6y agoYes, of course I can, but that's not a perfect solution. Suppose it turns out that I was mistaken in my belief that the person I'm asking knows the answer off the top of their head. They see my chat which by now is (say) an hour old and start to work on finding an answer because they think it's important. Half an hour later they've figured it out, come back to answer, and see that my original inquiry has been deleted. At best they would be puzzled, at worst annoyed that I've wasted their time. Human communications are laden with subtleties. Synchronous comms are fundamentally different from async, and it's important to know which one you're actually engaged in so you can adjust your behavior appropriately.