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That really depends on what you want this certain friend to do. Usually, when the context is not learning, you want to hear answer with the nuts and this is uni
by Aperocky 5y ago
That really depends on what you want this certain friend to do. Usually, when the context is not learning, you want to hear answer with the nuts and this is universally true.
We don't comment on code review with "What do you think this does", we say "Here this is wrong because it will do X and to fix you need Y".
But when it comes to learning, I can't fault the other approach because that is clearly the better way to drill the programming mentality over to the learner. Almost all good engineer knows where to look, and syntactic or logical problems in any context are solved in a very similar way. People who don't have this structured method to approach a bug are going to find trouble in software engineering.
- toastercat 5y agoEven in the context of learning, "Here this is wrong because it will do X and to fix you need Y" is immensely valuable.
- bdamm 5y agoWhen it comes to working with people, it’s usually clear who learned programming by rote memorization and who actually noodled their way through a formal education. I’ll do almost anything to avoid working with the former. They just can’t carry their weight, most of the time.
- toastercat 5y agoUnfortunately, things aren't so black and white. You can expect and benefit from direct answers and still explore and "noodle" on your own time.
- Aperocky 5y agoIf the change is simple, i.e. obvious with an visual examination, or if the bug is straightforwardly presented in the stack trace, in a learning context it's imo more helpful to have you go over the problem and arrive at that conclusion yourself. I've had multiple instances with multiple different people that come to me with problems that are pretty much repeats - I've since adapted to "I'll give you hints but you'll need to figure out yourself" in the context of learning. Obviously, only if the context is learning.
- toastercat 5y agoYes, I don't disagree that sometimes toiling over a problem yourself is the most rewarding. I think most people have experienced this. This is the purpose of exercises in textbooks. But most textbooks don't solely consists of exercises. I was responding to this idea of never giving direct answers, only always posing more questions, which I think has a high potential of backfiring. As another user pointed out in this comments thread, I believe the best approach to take is first get an understanding of what the student already knows and understands, how best they learn, and form your instruction around that.
- emodendroket 5y agoOh I mean I'll definitely start doing that with junior coworkers if I get the sense that they're not going to apply their brains otherwise.