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The patterns Julia gives absolutely distill the bad practices when well-intentioned people try but fail to explain something. In particular, you can see exampl
by crispyambulance 5y ago
The patterns Julia gives absolutely distill the bad practices when well-intentioned people try but fail to explain something.
In particular, you can see examples of "inconsistent expectations of reader knowledge" and "starting out abstract" ALL THE TIME in stackoverflow. Someone will ask a specific question about a problem they're having but then have their question closed as dupe and referred to another related (or not) question that has somebody's idea of a "canonical" answer. That answer is often highly comprehensive but it is also often a poor fit answer for someone that is just trying to figure something out and is not equipped to handle and apply an abstract generalized solution to their specific problem.
- IshKebab 5y agoYeah I guess that's because StackOverflow itself doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a Q&A site? A reference manual? A programming wiki? Who knows, but I guess we'll close your question just to be safe. :-)
- NateEag 5y agoThat does happen, but the StackOverflow people aren't wrong. If there's a good, general answer to the question, then it's on the asker to expand their knowledge as they need to in order to understand that general answer.
- crispyambulance 5y agoStackoverflow people are frequently and abundantly "wrong" as far as emotional intelligence and empathy goes. Sometimes a simple question needs a simple answer and not treatise or "canonical" answer.