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I'm all for cutting this out with medical advice and such (unsolicited advice, and importantly wrong advice), but this example annoys me: >You look at some gra

I'm all for cutting this out with medical advice and such (unsolicited advice, and importantly wrong advice), but this example annoys me: >You look at some graphs and error messages. It’s easy (once again, I speak from experience) to say something like “Could you just cache the hot partition keys?” or “So, just scan the logs for the high-latency signals and frequency-sort them.” >This. Will. Not. Help. It's not fair to ask people for help and then complain about their word usage when trying to help. This is a situation where solicited advice was asked for. Some people diagnose and troubleshoot by starting simple -- this is especially true if they've been roped into an incident in progress and no one has caught them up. Is it plugged in? Is it turned on? Have you power cycled it? Have you done other simple things that humans tend to forget when dealing with a crisis because we aren't perfect? >Do not, to quote the OED, “represent as a small thing” the difficulty of something you’re asking someone else to do, when you’re not inside their head and don’t understand what they see and feel. Why don't you turn this around and consider that there may not be any bad intentions from someone when you hear the word 'just'. It's possible it's just a habit of speaking they've developed. You are not in their heads just like they are not in yours. If you want to work it out like adults, then talk about the phrasing and see if you can come to an agreement. That will help you see if they are being condescending rather than reacting to hearing the word 'just' used.

dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
> It's not fair to ask people for help and then complain about their word usage when trying to help. This is a situation where solicited advice was asked for. This is not wrong but it's not always useful. Being more kind in your language when giving help will carry your point across more clearly. Consider a junior engineer stressed out by deadlines -- sure, they should listen to you calmly and fix the problem, but it can be hard when you're not used to the right mindstate. A bit of finesse when choosing your words will go a long way. This goes the other way too -- ignoring when people use unnecessary language when giving help is for the best, even though in a perfect world they wouldn't. Communication is about being understood, not being fair. Giving a bit from your side to speak on terms the other side is more comfortable on is a great skill to have.
- vsareto 4y ago
  I agree with culling 'just' because it rarely adds clarity, but I don't get the emotional impact others are having when they hear it. This blog post is trying to establish that its use definitely means something bad and condescending, but I don't agree with it: >The word “just” is a signal that you’re not taking their problem seriously. It wants to use this (flawed imo) reason to make people feel guilty any time they use 'just'.
  - potta_coffee 4y ago
    I think the issue is that sometimes the word is "just" filler, and sometimes it's intended to communicate the opinion that the problem is superficial and ought to be easily handled. The meaning is highly dependent on context and who is speaking.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    > This blog post is trying to establish that its use definitely means something bad and condescending, but I don't agree with it: You don't need to. Just don't use it, and you'll be fine. (^This is an attempt to provide an illustrative example.)
- m000z0rz 4y ago
  > Communication is about being understood, not being fair. This is why in some cases it's better to say "Just" instead of trying to hide what you're trying to say in order to maybe be more sensitive without even knowing if that's necessary. For this situation, I tend to phrase it as "Can we just <x>"? which might be received better than "Just <x>", but "just" is an important word here - I want the other person to understand that I think this ought to be easy. If it's not, I probably want to know why, because that will give me more information about the problem and possible solutions.
  - llbeansandrice 4y ago
    I feel like "just" is a huge source of resentment between engineers and non-technical managers/clients/etc. Can we "just" return true if the picture contains a bird?[0] [0] https://xkcd.com/1425/ https://xkcd.com/1425/
b3morales 4y ago
The essay seems to be from someone who is more often on the giving help side than the asking side. And I read it from that perspective: starting from the assumption that you want to help, here's a thing that will make you more effective at doing so.
ajkjk 4y ago
> It's not fair to ask people for help and then complain about their word usage when trying to help. This is a situation where solicited advice was asked for. ... yes it is. You can be forced by circumstance to ask for help from an unempathetic jerk and then still feel like they are an unempathetic jerk. Incidentally, it is nerdy 'hacker' types who are especially guilty of putting down people when asked for help. But not all uses of the word 'just' have that effect. You can usually tell the people who are using it out of consideration versus those who are using it to demean and belittle.
deanCommie 4y ago
> It's possible it's just a habit of speaking they've developed. That's not an excuse. If your habit of speaking causes problems, sometimes the problem is you. Language evolves. Societal norms evolve.
zoogeny 4y ago
It reminds me of the Robustness Principle [1] which states: "be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others" I think this advice about the use of "just" applies. You should be liberal in accepting "just" statements from others but conservative in sending "just" statements to others. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle
- quesera 4y ago
  Credit where credit is due. That's Internet pioneer (Jon) Postel's Law: > Perhaps his most famous legacy is from RFC760, which includes a robustness principle often called Postel's law: "an implementation should be conservative in its sending behavior, and liberal in its receiving behavior" (reworded in RFC 1122 as "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel
Dylan16807 4y ago
Yeah, I don't think that example works very well. The "just" isn't diminishing the problem, it's diminishing the debugging step. And that debugging step is legitimately simple. There's definite room for improvement. The sentence is better if we either remove "just" or change it to "let's start by just scanning". But it's not the same problem as the overall article is describing.
danielmarkbruce 4y ago
Yeah, plus... sometimes caching the hot partition keys is just the answer to the problem.
arkh 4y ago
> Some people diagnose and troubleshoot by starting simple -- this is especially true if they've been roped into an incident in progress and no one has caught them up. Is it plugged in? Is it turned on? Have you power cycled it? Have you done other simple things that humans tend to forget when dealing with a crisis because we aren't perfect? Usually when it's not a person you're often working with you'll start by a little speech like "I've been asked to come help. I'm not up to speed so I'll ask stupid questions. Please don't mind it, I just want to cover the bases before we can start the hard work".

dj_mc_merlin 4y ago

> It's not fair to ask people for help and then complain about their word usage when trying to help. This is a situation where solicited advice was asked for. This is not wrong but it's not always useful. Being more kind in your language when giving help will carry your point across more clearly. Consider a junior engineer stressed out by deadlines -- sure, they should listen to you calmly and fix the problem, but it can be hard when you're not used to the right mindstate. A bit of finesse when choosing your words will go a long way. This goes the other way too -- ignoring when people use unnecessary language when giving help is for the best, even though in a perfect world they wouldn't. Communication is about being understood, not being fair. Giving a bit from your side to speak on terms the other side is more comfortable on is a great skill to have.

vsareto 4y ago
I agree with culling 'just' because it rarely adds clarity, but I don't get the emotional impact others are having when they hear it. This blog post is trying to establish that its use definitely means something bad and condescending, but I don't agree with it: >The word “just” is a signal that you’re not taking their problem seriously. It wants to use this (flawed imo) reason to make people feel guilty any time they use 'just'.
- potta_coffee 4y ago
  I think the issue is that sometimes the word is "just" filler, and sometimes it's intended to communicate the opinion that the problem is superficial and ought to be easily handled. The meaning is highly dependent on context and who is speaking.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > This blog post is trying to establish that its use definitely means something bad and condescending, but I don't agree with it: You don't need to. Just don't use it, and you'll be fine. (^This is an attempt to provide an illustrative example.)
m000z0rz 4y ago
> Communication is about being understood, not being fair. This is why in some cases it's better to say "Just" instead of trying to hide what you're trying to say in order to maybe be more sensitive without even knowing if that's necessary. For this situation, I tend to phrase it as "Can we just <x>"? which might be received better than "Just <x>", but "just" is an important word here - I want the other person to understand that I think this ought to be easy. If it's not, I probably want to know why, because that will give me more information about the problem and possible solutions.
- llbeansandrice 4y ago
  I feel like "just" is a huge source of resentment between engineers and non-technical managers/clients/etc. Can we "just" return true if the picture contains a bird?[0] [0] https://xkcd.com/1425/ https://xkcd.com/1425/

b3morales 4y ago

The essay seems to be from someone who is more often on the giving help side than the asking side. And I read it from that perspective: starting from the assumption that you want to help, here's a thing that will make you more effective at doing so.

ajkjk 4y ago

> It's not fair to ask people for help and then complain about their word usage when trying to help. This is a situation where solicited advice was asked for. ... yes it is. You can be forced by circumstance to ask for help from an unempathetic jerk and then still feel like they are an unempathetic jerk. Incidentally, it is nerdy 'hacker' types who are especially guilty of putting down people when asked for help. But not all uses of the word 'just' have that effect. You can usually tell the people who are using it out of consideration versus those who are using it to demean and belittle.

deanCommie 4y ago

> It's possible it's just a habit of speaking they've developed. That's not an excuse. If your habit of speaking causes problems, sometimes the problem is you. Language evolves. Societal norms evolve.

zoogeny 4y ago

It reminds me of the Robustness Principle [1] which states: "be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others" I think this advice about the use of "just" applies. You should be liberal in accepting "just" statements from others but conservative in sending "just" statements to others. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle

quesera 4y ago
Credit where credit is due. That's Internet pioneer (Jon) Postel's Law: > Perhaps his most famous legacy is from RFC760, which includes a robustness principle often called Postel's law: "an implementation should be conservative in its sending behavior, and liberal in its receiving behavior" (reworded in RFC 1122 as "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel

Dylan16807 4y ago

Yeah, I don't think that example works very well. The "just" isn't diminishing the problem, it's diminishing the debugging step. And that debugging step is legitimately simple. There's definite room for improvement. The sentence is better if we either remove "just" or change it to "let's start by just scanning". But it's not the same problem as the overall article is describing.

danielmarkbruce 4y ago

Yeah, plus... sometimes caching the hot partition keys is just the answer to the problem.

arkh 4y ago

> Some people diagnose and troubleshoot by starting simple -- this is especially true if they've been roped into an incident in progress and no one has caught them up. Is it plugged in? Is it turned on? Have you power cycled it? Have you done other simple things that humans tend to forget when dealing with a crisis because we aren't perfect? Usually when it's not a person you're often working with you'll start by a little speech like "I've been asked to come help. I'm not up to speed so I'll ask stupid questions. Please don't mind it, I just want to cover the bases before we can start the hard work".