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This reminds me of one of my pet hates; you pose to the team an issue that needs solving, or perhaps you're in the middle of solving, and someone pipes up with

by Vanit 5y ago

This reminds me of one of my pet hates; you pose to the team an issue that needs solving, or perhaps you're in the middle of solving, and someone pipes up with "Couldn't you just X?", where X is the first thing any competent person might think of. Yes, sometimes we overlook the simple solutions and get caught in our own bubbles, so there is some value there. Personally when I find myself wanting to "couldn't you just" someone I start with more probing questions because I'm going to assume the obvious answer was the first thing tried/abandoned, which is why we're even talking about this. I suppose this is just the manifestation of the best way to motivate an engineer being to tell them something is impossible.

Dunedan 5y ago
If you didn't explain why X doesn't work, it's absolutely justified that people ask if that simpler solution X would work as well. Assuming you considered "the obvious answer" is unfortunately often not sufficient, as what's obvious to one person might not be obvious to another person.
- jlokier 5y ago
  The "just" questions have their place, but more often than not, I've found it there's more than one they use up the available conversation energy. By the time all the obvious "justs" have been asked, and explanations why not for the n'th time have been given, the worthwhile meeting energy is exhausted and the original purpose of making a proposal is rendered pointless. You can see this outcome long before the end of a meeting too. If you see it coming at the start, maybe you won't bother making the proposal in the first place. It's not a bad sort of question, rationally. It's more that it tends to be accompanied with dismissive, looking-down yet shallow thinking, when what you needed for a useful meeting was engagement with the "meat" of the issue, not shallow dismissals. I knew someone who worked at a place where the word "just" in conversations was called out humorously with a silly noise, even when said by accident, to discourage it :)
Agentlien 5y ago
I feel like I used to get the question a lot at my previous job. When it was from people without a technical background it made little sense and was usually just a waste of time. When I got it from another programmer I didn't mind as much. Even if it should be obvious I'd already tried it, I know that the few times I've asked it myself it's because I'm genuinely curious why the obvious answer didn't work. Then again, I would probably word it differently. I think corporate culture is an important part of it. I see a lot of comments in discussions like these which make it sound like technical discussions tend to be a series of passive aggressive jabs and office politics. I've never had a job like that. I've certainly seen more office politics than I would like, but it didn't creep into technical discussions.

by Vanit 5y ago

Dunedan 5y ago

If you didn't explain why X doesn't work, it's absolutely justified that people ask if that simpler solution X would work as well. Assuming you considered "the obvious answer" is unfortunately often not sufficient, as what's obvious to one person might not be obvious to another person.

jlokier 5y ago
The "just" questions have their place, but more often than not, I've found it there's more than one they use up the available conversation energy. By the time all the obvious "justs" have been asked, and explanations why not for the n'th time have been given, the worthwhile meeting energy is exhausted and the original purpose of making a proposal is rendered pointless. You can see this outcome long before the end of a meeting too. If you see it coming at the start, maybe you won't bother making the proposal in the first place. It's not a bad sort of question, rationally. It's more that it tends to be accompanied with dismissive, looking-down yet shallow thinking, when what you needed for a useful meeting was engagement with the "meat" of the issue, not shallow dismissals. I knew someone who worked at a place where the word "just" in conversations was called out humorously with a silly noise, even when said by accident, to discourage it :)

Agentlien 5y ago

I feel like I used to get the question a lot at my previous job. When it was from people without a technical background it made little sense and was usually just a waste of time. When I got it from another programmer I didn't mind as much. Even if it should be obvious I'd already tried it, I know that the few times I've asked it myself it's because I'm genuinely curious why the obvious answer didn't work. Then again, I would probably word it differently. I think corporate culture is an important part of it. I see a lot of comments in discussions like these which make it sound like technical discussions tend to be a series of passive aggressive jabs and office politics. I've never had a job like that. I've certainly seen more office politics than I would like, but it didn't creep into technical discussions.