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You have to consider that SO exists not only to answer your specific problem, but also to help other users who might face a similar problem. In that context, it

by js8 6y ago

You have to consider that SO exists not only to answer your specific problem, but also to help other users who might face a similar problem. In that context, it might be helpful to mention, if you are the asking person, include the details why you cannot do X, if you know you can't; or, if your question doesn't include details about your specific circumstance, answers that mention that common solution is to do X instead.

systemvoltage 6y ago
No. User asks I want to do Y. The responding party should in my opinion: - Provide a solution to Y first. This is OP's point. - Then as a corollary, provide some of their guesswork of what X might be and if it is true, then this is how to solve X without having to do Y. So, it is still beneficial to n00bs and the uninformed, just puts the direct answer to Y first. That's all OP is asking and I agree with that. Most of the time, smartass responses go into the guesswork regime by assuming the User wanted to do X. More than often User actually wanted to do Z, it's not always true and it is polluting SO against the spirit of "Direct question ---> Direct answer" because discovery and searching of answers happen through Y, not X. Most people came to SO because of Y, that's how they landed there in the first place.
- chowells 6y ago
  This is not a good approach. For the typical person asking a question, you waste their time at best. At worst, they actually use your solution to Y and ignore why it's bad. Both of those are significantly worse than clarifying the problem in the first place.
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    No one is saying we shouldn't provide why Y is bad. I said, it should be a corollary. The bad approach is when the entire thread is full of guesses of what X might be without knowing the full context. Y is nowhere to be found. It breaks the UX of SO.
moralestapia 6y ago
>but also to help other users who might face a similar problem They could ask their own questions. I'd rather have a database of specific questions with specific answers than "X-Ys" all over the place.
- js8 6y ago
  Your question, without explanation why you want to do Y, when obvious way is to do X, is then not specific enough to people who have XY problem and are not aware of it.
  - moralestapia 6y ago
    >not specific enough to people who have XY problem and are not aware of it Again, they should be expected to ask their own questions on the site, so they could get the answers they're looking for. Come on, that's not hard to grasp. A question like "How to delete a project from Google Cloud Console" [1], should have a clear, definite answer. I wouldn't expect to see something like "this is how you register an account on AWS", just in case "the user is changing providers". 1: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16621921/how-to-delete-a-project-from-google-cloud-console https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16621921/how-to-delete-a...
nonameiguess 6y ago
The reality that Stack Overflow doesn't seem to want to admit is a huge number of questions are coming from people in school, MOOCs, going through tutorials, books, whatever the case may be, trying to learn and doing things in an intentionally suboptimal way for pedagogical purpose, even though you would never deploy such code to production. Or they're working through LeetCode or something. If an assignment says they have to do something a particular way, they don't have a choice and it's patronizing and annoying to see all the responses questioning why they're doing exactly what the assignment requires them to do. Might also point out that a lot of people finding the question later on Google because they the same question are just trying to do the same assignment, so Stack Overflow is undermining its own stated purpose here.

by js8 6y ago

systemvoltage 6y ago

No. User asks I want to do Y. The responding party should in my opinion: - Provide a solution to Y first. This is OP's point. - Then as a corollary, provide some of their guesswork of what X might be and if it is true, then this is how to solve X without having to do Y. So, it is still beneficial to n00bs and the uninformed, just puts the direct answer to Y first. That's all OP is asking and I agree with that. Most of the time, smartass responses go into the guesswork regime by assuming the User wanted to do X. More than often User actually wanted to do Z, it's not always true and it is polluting SO against the spirit of "Direct question ---> Direct answer" because discovery and searching of answers happen through Y, not X. Most people came to SO because of Y, that's how they landed there in the first place.

chowells 6y ago
This is not a good approach. For the typical person asking a question, you waste their time at best. At worst, they actually use your solution to Y and ignore why it's bad. Both of those are significantly worse than clarifying the problem in the first place.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  No one is saying we shouldn't provide why Y is bad. I said, it should be a corollary. The bad approach is when the entire thread is full of guesses of what X might be without knowing the full context. Y is nowhere to be found. It breaks the UX of SO.

moralestapia 6y ago

>but also to help other users who might face a similar problem They could ask their own questions. I'd rather have a database of specific questions with specific answers than "X-Ys" all over the place.

js8 6y ago
Your question, without explanation why you want to do Y, when obvious way is to do X, is then not specific enough to people who have XY problem and are not aware of it.
- moralestapia 6y ago
  >not specific enough to people who have XY problem and are not aware of it Again, they should be expected to ask their own questions on the site, so they could get the answers they're looking for. Come on, that's not hard to grasp. A question like "How to delete a project from Google Cloud Console" [1], should have a clear, definite answer. I wouldn't expect to see something like "this is how you register an account on AWS", just in case "the user is changing providers". 1: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16621921/how-to-delete-a-project-from-google-cloud-console https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16621921/how-to-delete-a...

nonameiguess 6y ago

The reality that Stack Overflow doesn't seem to want to admit is a huge number of questions are coming from people in school, MOOCs, going through tutorials, books, whatever the case may be, trying to learn and doing things in an intentionally suboptimal way for pedagogical purpose, even though you would never deploy such code to production. Or they're working through LeetCode or something. If an assignment says they have to do something a particular way, they don't have a choice and it's patronizing and annoying to see all the responses questioning why they're doing exactly what the assignment requires them to do. Might also point out that a lot of people finding the question later on Google because they the same question are just trying to do the same assignment, so Stack Overflow is undermining its own stated purpose here.