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> Isn't finding and pointing out a fundamental flaw in how you want to accomplish X the opposite of pedantic? The problem is when people treat questions as hav
by rrwo 4y ago
> Isn't finding and pointing out a fundamental flaw in how you want to accomplish X the opposite of pedantic?
The problem is when people treat questions as having fundamental flaws when they don't.
We often have to maintain legacy systems running on ancient servers, or with code that doesn't quite fit with a perfect theoretical framework of system design.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThere's some responsibility on the questioner here, though. If you're on an ancient legacy system, say so. If there's a reason to go down something that'd normally be a horrible practice, explain a little about why. 99% of the time when someone on SO asks "how do I decrypt a password hash?" the correct answer is "you do not, being able to do so is very bad" because it's a common newbie point of confusion. 1% of the time it's "hashing isn't encryption, you want a form of reversible encryption for this particular use case". At no point is a user going to get a "how to reverse a bcrypt hash" answer. Every once in a while the questioner gets pissy about both of those correct answers, because they're so focused on the answer they wanted they can't understand the problem.
- rrwo 4y agoI should be able to ask on a forum about configuring an application that dates back to the 1990s without having to declare that I have to maintain a legacy server for work, and that throwing it away and replacing it is not an option. There is no fundamental flaw in using very old software that still works.