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>"That definitely says something about the discoverability of the platform's functionality." I think it says more about people being lazy and not willing to us
by FpUser 4y ago
>"That definitely says something about the discoverability of the platform's functionality."
I think it says more about people being lazy and not willing to use that mighty tool called search (add ChatGPT now). Even here on HN I often see people asking what is X when that X is one web search away.
- Karunamon 4y agoThat one is at least defensible, a Q and A in a public forum can be a seed that generates further discussion and provides knowledge to others.
- Joker_vD 4y agoYeah, agreed, we should change human psychology to fit our current technological stack better, that sounds way easier than doing the opposite. On a serious note, I do hope that built-in help systems with ChatGPT glued on (and additionally trained on its contents) will become a de-facto standard in the near future: it should be possible to just ask your computing environment "how do I do X with you?" and get an answer or at least some guidance pointers.
- FpUser 4y agoThe scope of modern OS, its utilities and commands is so large that good and comprehensive doc would be huge. And that is just the description of command with options. How do I do X is even more complex and may require things that go way beyond the simple doc and will require books. This is just not scalable and impractical. Having piles of common knowledge like Stack Overflow / forums / etc augmented with search and now ChatGPT is way more practical. I've personally written what is very comprehensive doc for one of my software products. It described every nook and cranny. Still I ended up supporting a forum with most common questions percolated to a dedicated How Do I Do XYZ section and it just keeps growing. In the beginning I was answering question there. Now I just see people supporting themselves.