3 ms·

Lots of documentation is written by and for people writing it and not for someone who just arrived at the company. And then you expect some junior dev to just

Lots of documentation is written by and for people writing it and not for someone who just arrived at the company. And then you expect some junior dev to just understand everything without asking. A culture where people are afraid of asking questions is worse than having the best possible documentation on everything

vladvasiliu 5y ago
> A culture where people are afraid of asking questions is worse than having the best possible documentation on everything. No doubt. However, my answer was to someone talking about people expecting to be spoon-fed in meetings, not just asking questions about some points they don't understand / can't find specifics for / etc. The dynamic is very different. Asking questions is active. You read, try to understand, realize you don't. You then form a question and ask it. Contrast this with someone who just expects a laundry list of actions. "Just tell me what to do [step by step]". My answer was also from experience in companies where even people with seniority and who had been there for quite a while will expect a checklist-like procedure to do things, and hardly attempt to actually understand their tools. I get that the mental model of some tooling is not always self-evident, to say the least. But it's clear to me when someone tries to understand it and fails, and when someone doesn't even try. And I'm talking about tools they use day in, day out. They just learn to click that button and to expect that result. When something goes wrong, they have no idea what may have happened. I suspect this may also be somewhat related with the discussion on HN the other day about error codes [0], as in they get so used to cryptic, vague or downright wrong error messages that they just don't pay attention to them anymore – because 9 times out of 10 it's a waste of time. [0] What the Fastly outage can teach us about writing error messages https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27443519 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27443519
- random_kris 5y ago
  I agree on points you gave.
dahart 5y ago
> A culture where people are afraid of asking questions is worse than having the best possible documentation on everything Yes, true, but a culture of asking too easy or even dumb questions that the docs clearly cover is also worse than having the best possible documentation on everything. One company I worked for got it right, IMO, and it stuck with me. My mentor told me the first day: “You must spend at least five minutes trying to answer your own question by reading the docs before you ask someone else. And you must go ask someone if it takes you more than ten minutes to find the answer. Do not ask someone without having tried to find the answer yourself, and do not get stuck on something alone.”

vladvasiliu 5y ago

> A culture where people are afraid of asking questions is worse than having the best possible documentation on everything. No doubt. However, my answer was to someone talking about people expecting to be spoon-fed in meetings, not just asking questions about some points they don't understand / can't find specifics for / etc. The dynamic is very different. Asking questions is active. You read, try to understand, realize you don't. You then form a question and ask it. Contrast this with someone who just expects a laundry list of actions. "Just tell me what to do [step by step]". My answer was also from experience in companies where even people with seniority and who had been there for quite a while will expect a checklist-like procedure to do things, and hardly attempt to actually understand their tools. I get that the mental model of some tooling is not always self-evident, to say the least. But it's clear to me when someone tries to understand it and fails, and when someone doesn't even try. And I'm talking about tools they use day in, day out. They just learn to click that button and to expect that result. When something goes wrong, they have no idea what may have happened. I suspect this may also be somewhat related with the discussion on HN the other day about error codes [0], as in they get so used to cryptic, vague or downright wrong error messages that they just don't pay attention to them anymore – because 9 times out of 10 it's a waste of time. [0] What the Fastly outage can teach us about writing error messages https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27443519 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27443519

random_kris 5y ago
I agree on points you gave.

dahart 5y ago

> A culture where people are afraid of asking questions is worse than having the best possible documentation on everything Yes, true, but a culture of asking too easy or even dumb questions that the docs clearly cover is also worse than having the best possible documentation on everything. One company I worked for got it right, IMO, and it stuck with me. My mentor told me the first day: “You must spend at least five minutes trying to answer your own question by reading the docs before you ask someone else. And you must go ask someone if it takes you more than ten minutes to find the answer. Do not ask someone without having tried to find the answer yourself, and do not get stuck on something alone.”