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Communication is great, but asynchronous communication is far better than synchronous. Problems it solves: - Not having something to hand, or having to look s

Communication is great, but asynchronous communication is far better than synchronous. Problems it solves: - Not having something to hand, or having to look something up: I can take my time and find it, then email/text back - Being interrupted: I'll get back to you once I'm free - Dealing with business hours: I can email at 10pm and you can get back to me when you're in work the next day - Not having a record of communication: I can have an unbroken chain of communication the entire way through that we can both refer back to The only real negative is less immediacy, but things are rarely needed right now. If we kept phone calls to only things that were necessary right then and there, we'd hardly ever get them.

heleninboodler 4y ago
There are advantages to synchronous, however. Stuff you don't necessarily need to know right now, but if you can't take care of it in realtime, you wouldn't bother with async. Say, I'm at the store and I want to know if my girlfriend needs [some product I'm staring at], and I want to know right away, because I'm about to leave, but if she's unavailable, it's no big deal. I'll try to call her and if she doesn't pick up, I just skip it. I'm not going to do an async query and then stand around for some undetermined amount of time to decide whether she's going to respond. It's synchronous or bail. That doesn't imply that it's needed now.
- bearmode 4y ago
  I'm not talking just life-or-death stuff, I would be calling that something that you need to know right there. There's a very set, short timeframe for you to receive this information before it can no longer be acted upon. So of course a phone call makes more sense there.
- yoav 4y ago
  Going to a store spontaneously and the other person spontaneously needing something from that store but not going themself sounds wild and unhinged to me. Save everyone the hassle and just don’t call. If she needed something she can just get it when she originally planned to. The unplanned phone call out of the blue can be 100% avoided
  - heleninboodler 4y ago
    "Hey, you mentioned you needed mushrooms for dinner. Did you get them yet? I'm at the store and could grab them right now and save you a trip," sounds "unhinged" to you? WTF.
    - tarboreus 4y ago
      I must be really unhinged. Wonder if this person is married?

heleninboodler 4y ago

There are advantages to synchronous, however. Stuff you don't necessarily need to know right now, but if you can't take care of it in realtime, you wouldn't bother with async. Say, I'm at the store and I want to know if my girlfriend needs [some product I'm staring at], and I want to know right away, because I'm about to leave, but if she's unavailable, it's no big deal. I'll try to call her and if she doesn't pick up, I just skip it. I'm not going to do an async query and then stand around for some undetermined amount of time to decide whether she's going to respond. It's synchronous or bail. That doesn't imply that it's needed now.

bearmode 4y ago
I'm not talking just life-or-death stuff, I would be calling that something that you need to know right there. There's a very set, short timeframe for you to receive this information before it can no longer be acted upon. So of course a phone call makes more sense there.
yoav 4y ago
Going to a store spontaneously and the other person spontaneously needing something from that store but not going themself sounds wild and unhinged to me. Save everyone the hassle and just don’t call. If she needed something she can just get it when she originally planned to. The unplanned phone call out of the blue can be 100% avoided
- heleninboodler 4y ago
  "Hey, you mentioned you needed mushrooms for dinner. Did you get them yet? I'm at the store and could grab them right now and save you a trip," sounds "unhinged" to you? WTF.
  - tarboreus 4y ago
    I must be really unhinged. Wonder if this person is married?