5 ms·

Between "no" and "yes sure" also lie 50 shades of "is this what you meant?". For example, this older guy asked me to create a webpage where people could "downlo

by Lutger 1y ago

Between "no" and "yes sure" also lie 50 shades of "is this what you meant?". For example, this older guy asked me to create a webpage where people could "download the database". He meant a very limited csv export of course. I an wondering if chatgpt would have understood his prompts, and this was one of the more obvious ones to me.

whstl 1y ago
Definitely. Saying no is not really denying, it's negotiating.
- blooalien 1y ago
  > Saying no is not really denying, it's negotiating. Sometimes. I have often had to say "no" because the customer request is genuinely impossible. Then comes the fun bit of explaining why the thing they want simply cannot exist, because often they'll try "But what if you just ... ?" – "No! It doesn't work that way, and here's why..."
  - whstl 1y ago
    Argh. I had to explain recently that `a * x !== b * x when a !== b`*... it is infuriating hearing "but the result is the same in this other competitor" coupled with the "maybe the problem here is you're not knowledgeable enough to understand".
    - cogman10 1y ago
      Ah, I see you've worked on financial software as well ;) We've definitely had our fair share of "IDK what to tell you, those guys are mathing wrong". TBF, though, most customers are pretty tolerant of explainable differences in computed values. There's a bunch of "meh, close enough" in finance. We usually only run into the problem when someone (IMO) is looking for a reason not to buy our software. "It's not a perfect match, no way we can use this" sort of thing.
      - whstl 1y ago
        The super-advanced math that finance folks would throw at us was daunting. At this particular job I used the plus, the star (multiplication) and once I even got to use the minus. There's a legend going around that a friend of mine has used division, but he has a PhD.
  - ericrosedev 1y ago
    “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you”
  - const_cast 1y ago
    Almost nothing is impossible, but a lot of things are really close. If it requires changing fundamental design aspects of a system then it's not worth it. I'm not going to burn down the code base and cause 1.5 million side effects that we don't know what they do so you can drag and drop a piece of the UI around like a widget.
- bombcar 1y ago
  I call it "nogotiating" - the problem is that inexperienced devs emphasize the "no" part and that's all the client hears. What you have to do is dig into the REASONS they want X or Y or Z (all of which are either expensive, impossible, or both) - then show them a way to get to their destination or close to it.
  - pixl97 1y ago
    "Yes, I can do that, but I don't think downloading the entire database is exactly what you want"
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- rawgabbit 1y ago
  A pet peeve of mind is the word negotiation in the context of user requirements. In the business user’s mind, negotiation means the developer can do X but the developer is lazy. Usually, it is requirement X doesn’t make any sense because a meeting was held where the business decided to pivot to a new direction and decided the new technical solution. The product owner simply gives out the new requirement without the context. If an architect or senior developer was involved in the meeting, they would have told the business you just trashed six months of development and we will now start over.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
immibis 1y ago
I think he actually had a clearer vision of the requirements than you do. In web dev jargon land (and many jargon lands) "the database" means "the instance of Postgres" etc. But fundamentally it just means "the base of data", the same way "a codebase" doesn't just mean a Git repository. "Downloading the database" just means there's a way to download all the data, and CSV is a reasonable export format. Don't get confused into thinking it means a way to download the Postgres data folder.
pempem 1y ago
OMG this reminds me of a client (enterprise) I had who had been pushed into the role of product and he requested we build a website that "lets you bookmark every page"
- rypskar 1y ago
  >> lets you bookmark every page In today's world with all the SPAs that don't push to history or don't manage to open the correct page based on history, this seems like a valid requirement
- chipsrafferty 1y ago
  That's actually a very valid request, and easy to understand. They want static endpoints and heavy use of query parameters so you can bookmark individual page states. It's up to you to work with them to identify key features and figure out precisely what to do.
  - pempem 1y ago
    Thanks Chip - we managed to navigate the problem several years ago.

by Lutger 1y ago

whstl 1y ago

Definitely. Saying no is not really denying, it's negotiating.

blooalien 1y ago
> Saying no is not really denying, it's negotiating. Sometimes. I have often had to say "no" because the customer request is genuinely impossible. Then comes the fun bit of explaining why the thing they want simply cannot exist, because often they'll try "But what if you just ... ?" – "No! It doesn't work that way, and here's why..."
- whstl 1y ago
  Argh. I had to explain recently that `a * x !== b * x when a !== b`*... it is infuriating hearing "but the result is the same in this other competitor" coupled with the "maybe the problem here is you're not knowledgeable enough to understand".
  - cogman10 1y ago
    Ah, I see you've worked on financial software as well ;) We've definitely had our fair share of "IDK what to tell you, those guys are mathing wrong". TBF, though, most customers are pretty tolerant of explainable differences in computed values. There's a bunch of "meh, close enough" in finance. We usually only run into the problem when someone (IMO) is looking for a reason not to buy our software. "It's not a perfect match, no way we can use this" sort of thing.
    - whstl 1y ago
      The super-advanced math that finance folks would throw at us was daunting. At this particular job I used the plus, the star (multiplication) and once I even got to use the minus. There's a legend going around that a friend of mine has used division, but he has a PhD.
- ericrosedev 1y ago
  “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you”
- const_cast 1y ago
  Almost nothing is impossible, but a lot of things are really close. If it requires changing fundamental design aspects of a system then it's not worth it. I'm not going to burn down the code base and cause 1.5 million side effects that we don't know what they do so you can drag and drop a piece of the UI around like a widget.
bombcar 1y ago
I call it "nogotiating" - the problem is that inexperienced devs emphasize the "no" part and that's all the client hears. What you have to do is dig into the REASONS they want X or Y or Z (all of which are either expensive, impossible, or both) - then show them a way to get to their destination or close to it.
- pixl97 1y ago
  "Yes, I can do that, but I don't think downloading the entire database is exactly what you want"
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
rawgabbit 1y ago
A pet peeve of mind is the word negotiation in the context of user requirements. In the business user’s mind, negotiation means the developer can do X but the developer is lazy. Usually, it is requirement X doesn’t make any sense because a meeting was held where the business decided to pivot to a new direction and decided the new technical solution. The product owner simply gives out the new requirement without the context. If an architect or senior developer was involved in the meeting, they would have told the business you just trashed six months of development and we will now start over.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

immibis 1y ago

I think he actually had a clearer vision of the requirements than you do. In web dev jargon land (and many jargon lands) "the database" means "the instance of Postgres" etc. But fundamentally it just means "the base of data", the same way "a codebase" doesn't just mean a Git repository. "Downloading the database" just means there's a way to download all the data, and CSV is a reasonable export format. Don't get confused into thinking it means a way to download the Postgres data folder.

pempem 1y ago

OMG this reminds me of a client (enterprise) I had who had been pushed into the role of product and he requested we build a website that "lets you bookmark every page"

rypskar 1y ago
>> lets you bookmark every page In today's world with all the SPAs that don't push to history or don't manage to open the correct page based on history, this seems like a valid requirement
chipsrafferty 1y ago
That's actually a very valid request, and easy to understand. They want static endpoints and heavy use of query parameters so you can bookmark individual page states. It's up to you to work with them to identify key features and figure out precisely what to do.
- pempem 1y ago
  Thanks Chip - we managed to navigate the problem several years ago.