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There’s always the running joke about people on SO claiming it’s a XY problem when it’s not. Alas, I encounter so many times when the OP did have an XY problem,
by Semaphor 3y ago
There’s always the running joke about people on SO claiming it’s a XY problem when it’s not. Alas, I encounter so many times when the OP did have an XY problem, the answers then solve the actual problem, but I never had an XY problem, have the problem in the title of the post (which no one solved or cared about), and leave without a solution. I wish moderators would adjust titles on SO questions that get updated to a different question.
And funnily enough, all threads for this submission have the complaint about the reverse XY problem at the top…
- wodenokoto 3y agoYeah, you really need to think two steps ahead and write out specifically "My problem is Y and not X, and the difference is ..." I find good success writing in my question "question is similar to <already answered question> except I need this and that, which that solution doesn't provide"
- Semaphor 3y agoI meant it the other way. I encounter so many questions on SO, where the problem was X after all. And then X gets solved, everyone is happy. Besides me, who gets it as a search result for problem Y that no one, including the OP, actually was interested in solving.