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A lot of replies in this tree read to me as "don't concisely express a general heuristic principle, because someone might read it and apply it without nuance".
by civilized 3y ago
A lot of replies in this tree read to me as "don't concisely express a general heuristic principle, because someone might read it and apply it without nuance".
This way of thinking is infantilizing. It is also self-defeating, because it is itself a failure to apply with nuance a general heuristic principle (don't oversimplify). It's doing what it tells you not to do.
Heuristics are only heuristics, but you have to articulate what they are before you can append "and this is only a heuristic, don't apply it blindly and universally".
Appending "everything depends on context" is the trivial part. The heuristics are the substantial contribution.
- makeitdouble 3y agoI see your side, but take it the other way: the basic message is really "you'll have to think for yourself anyway, heuristics from random strangers won't help", which I don't see as infantilizing. I see post mortems and issue discussions on public projects as a better resource and contribution than sharing personal heuristics.
- darkerside 3y agoBetter phrasing might be, this is a really good point, and while you can't rely on it alone, the more of these you learn, the better of a programmer you'll be.