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Does Not Work

importblogkit.com

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Re: Does Not Work

#51

Post by coldtea »

strken wrote: post #25

I've found that "this doesn't work" usually means "I've spent the past three hours on this and I want someone else to take a fresh look at it before I go insane" with my co-workers. In the case where someone doesn't provide more information because their brain is on fire and they're starting to get stressed out about the problem, it's easier to just help them and trust they'll do the same for you. Having said that, w…

I've found that even QA people casually write "X feature doesn't work" in bug reports, when they could give 10x more information, like: "the page stalls and shows the spinner continuously", "the button is grayed out and I can't click it", "the output is garbage letters", "the result is not the expected value", etc.

Re: Does Not Work

#52

Post by omginternets »

strken wrote: post #25

I've found that "this doesn't work" usually means "I've spent the past three hours on this and I want someone else to take a fresh look at it before I go insane" with my co-workers. In the case where someone doesn't provide more information because their brain is on fire and they're starting to get stressed out about the problem, it's easier to just help them and trust they'll do the same for you. Having said that, w…

I fully agree. I'll add that it might also mean "I've spent the past three hours on this and I have no idea where to look".

Certain projects (e.g.: almost anything from the Java world) can be pretty overwhelming at first.

Re: Does Not Work

#53

Post by omginternets »

daveguy wrote: post #48
caconym_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I feel like if you really are working with people who are total caricatures of cargo-culting code monkeys, and you see yourself as a Guru holding court and suffering the wailing of ignorant petitioners only so long as they are able to dig deep within themselves and attempt to rise to Your level for the duration of the conversation, you have only yourself to blame. Blogs posted from high horseback are just mastu…

> You can either try to help the more junior/less effective folks improve themselves, or An article on the best ways to convey the answer to the question "in what way does it not work" seems a good start. Yes the tone is obnoxious, but the advice is good.

I read his comment as pointing-out/caricaturing the obnoxiousness of the blog post.

And frankly, I think he's right.

Re: Does Not Work

#54

Post by icebraining »

cvs268 wrote: post #49
icebraining wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Does your chat client beep differently for longer messages? As long as it all fits in a single message, what's the difference?

i think the point was to avoid incessant beeping due to multiple short sentences. I have seen the embarrassment on people's faces when in a meeting and their IM app starts beeping like a time-bomb after someone has cut the wrong-wire. The sender sending a short 1 liner and waiting for acknowledgement before proceeding would prevent this. (results in a single beep if the receiver is busy) Its also avoided if the sende…

In my opinion, that's a bug in most chat apps. Multiple messages in succession from the same sender should only beep once. But I realize most people use restrictive apps, so they have to adapt to them rather than the other way around.

Re: Does Not Work

#55

Post by notatoad »

somethingsright wrote: post #28
notatoad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you're in a meeting/trying to concentrate/etc, then why is your chat status still set to available?

Because I am available for certain questions. I am available for "quick" questions which only I would know the answer to, and for critical questions. I want to defer "easy" questions which the questioner can easily find the answer to, but is lazy or incompetent. In my role, I will get questions from downright simple "how do I reset my password", or was a certain move-to-production done; to some really critical ones,…

I still don't understand why you'd prefer a "hello" message in that context. If you're able to take quick questions but are working on something else, isn't it better to get the question in the initial message so you can decide if it's quick or deferable with minimal back and forth?

Re: Does Not Work

#56

Post by collyw »

Much as I dislike Stack Overflow's zealous moderators, they are pretty good at closing down questions worded this way.

Re: Does Not Work

#57

Post by ouid »

coldtea wrote: post #51
strken wrote: post #25

I've found that "this doesn't work" usually means "I've spent the past three hours on this and I want someone else to take a fresh look at it before I go insane" with my co-workers. In the case where someone doesn't provide more information because their brain is on fire and they're starting to get stressed out about the problem, it's easier to just help them and trust they'll do the same for you. Having said that, w…

I've found that even QA people casually write "X feature doesn't work" in bug reports, when they could give 10x more information, like: "the page stalls and shows the spinner continuously", "the button is grayed out and I can't click it", "the output is garbage letters", "the result is not the expected value", etc.

They probably assume that the person whose job is to maintain the code can more efficiently investigate the nature of the problem, provided they give instructions on how to reproduce it.

Re: Does Not Work

#58

Post by King-Aaron »

pepijndevos wrote: post #38

> If you’re telling a programmer that a particular piece of source code simply “does not work”, then you should no longer consider yourself a programmer. I found this article unnecessarily rude. Sounds like someone got grumpy after answering too many SO posts. I agree with what others have said: If someone says that, either they are inexperienced and you can teach them some useful debugging skills, or their brain is…

Agree, I could barely stomach the article myself. If I asked someone for help and they told me to go away, it would make me quite irate. It's a "holier than thou" mentality.

Re: Does Not Work

#60

Post by coldtea »

ouid wrote: post #57
coldtea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that even QA people casually write "X feature doesn't work" in bug reports, when they could give 10x more information, like: "the page stalls and shows the spinner continuously", "the button is grayed out and I can't click it", "the output is garbage letters", "the result is not the expected value", etc.

They probably assume that the person whose job is to maintain the code can more efficiently investigate the nature of the problem, provided they give instructions on how to reproduce it.

The instructions of "how to reproduce it" should include detailed description of what was seen and thus is being reproduced.
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