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The mentality of this author is problematic. From the perspective of someone asking for Y, I've often been a victim of this because I'm met with a slew of imag
by bhk 5y ago
The mentality of this author is problematic.
From the perspective of someone asking for Y, I've often been a victim of
this because I'm met with a slew of imagined X's -- X0, X1, X2, ... an
unending list of problems, often more complicated than Y -- due to their
narrow preconceptions, making the whole exercise of asking someone not worth
the time.
From the perspective of someone being asked for Y, yes, often I can suspect
that there might be some mis-matched X there, but in order to be helpful, I
try to answer Y directly and honestly, and then point out my concerns,
describing my presumptions. If, indeed, the one posing the question has
jumped to some invalid conclusion Y from X, then I've given them all I can.
Trying to pre-empt it by telling them "don't do that!" is pointless -- if
they knew where they had made an unwarranted conclusion, they wouldn't be
asking the wrong question to begin with.
- smrq 5y agoNot sure why you are complaining about this author in particular when both of the examples in the link show exactly what you asked for: they answer Y and then ask for clarification on X.
- bhk 5y agoYeah, my comments about the author were mis-placed. This version redacts the source material in a way that comes across as nicer, although it retains the use of "n00b" to identify who is asking the question. I may have confused this with the "Source 2" linked from the article: http://mywiki.wooledge.org/XyProblem http://mywiki.wooledge.org/XyProblem In its examples, responses include an immediate "Why?" non-answer, an angry "ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT!", and the observation "Literal answers to bad questions can be dangerous" from one presumed non-noob to another.
- Blikkentrekker 5y agoI very much echo this experience. I have ben asked countless times to explain the problem, and in practice problems are harder to explain than attempted solutions. I once spent a long time explain the architecture of a multiserver supervisor dæmon manager because they insisted when I was looking for a rather simple answer regarding unix domain sockets. The actual problem often requires an explanation of the entire design strategy of the software at hand, which is often much.
- dirkt 5y ago> but in order to be helpful, I try to answer Y directly and honestly, and then point out my concerns, describing my presumptions. This works fine as long as Y actually does have a simple solution. Often it does not, and already the question for Y is really weird, but once you hear about the X you can give a quick and simple answer. That said, sometimes X is really really complicated. But even in that case it'll help anyone you are asking if you quickly outline X in a short sentence, just so the one you are asking has enough context. (I have been on both sides, but more often then not the simple X was missing from questions was really strange Ys. Though I also have asked for Ys (and even outlined the X) and have been annoyed by people who insist that I should do something else, and describe my X in more detail, but when I do, they can't answer either, because the X really complicated and Y actually was a valid attempt at solving it).