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The XY Problem (2014)
11–20 of 105 posts
Re: The XY Problem (2014)
#12In my life experience, 95% of the troubles with the XY problem stem from the fact that the people are not aware that they have over-fixated on the potential solution Y for the problem X. They quickly assumed it, solidified it in their heads, and then most of the time spent with them is allocated to making them disentangle Y from X. Once that happens, the solution has usually presented itself already at this point --…
Another aspect of this: more often than not Y is a solution that has side benefits that are not explicited in the request.
The obvious ones are buying a new computer to use a resource intensive software. There might be options to upgrade the existing parts to cleanly meet the requirements, borrow/rent a machine for the length of the project, spin up a machine in a cloud, straight ask someone else with an adequate machine to inherint the task etc.
Those could all be more optimal solutions, but I'd still totally ask for a new computer instead.
Re: The XY Problem (2014)
#13How about the IH problem: mistaking someone who is asking for information for someone who is asking for help?
Or the P problem: being so patronising that, not content with patronising individuals one at a time, you buy a domain so you can patronise the whole world.
Re: The XY Problem (2014)
#14I often encounter the opposite. I would have a complex problem that I can legitimately solve by something reasonably simple yet I don’t posses the expertise on. Asking how to do Y, I need to spend an godawful amount of time wasting to convince people that no, it really is not an XY problem, and could we just focus on the literal problem description, which you could answer in like 3 minutes, instead of you trying to s…
Pretty much stopped asking any questions on web forums because of this. Some people tend to "XY" you whenever they don't immediately know the answer to a complex question.
Re: The XY Problem (2014)
#15If there were a contact link on the site, I'd complain about the black on dark gray text for the examples.
Re: The XY Problem (2014)
#16I often encounter the opposite. I would have a complex problem that I can legitimately solve by something reasonably simple yet I don’t posses the expertise on. Asking how to do Y, I need to spend an godawful amount of time wasting to convince people that no, it really is not an XY problem, and could we just focus on the literal problem description, which you could answer in like 3 minutes, instead of you trying to s…
Yeah the whole premise of the "XY" problem seems like it was written up by someone who regulars Stack Overflow. It's pretty frustrating when the highest-upvotes answer to a question is "actually you don't want to do that. do something else instead".
Re: The XY Problem (2014)
#17Very badly named, given that XY also means “male.”
Re: The XY Problem (2014)
#18I often encounter the opposite. I would have a complex problem that I can legitimately solve by something reasonably simple yet I don’t posses the expertise on. Asking how to do Y, I need to spend an godawful amount of time wasting to convince people that no, it really is not an XY problem, and could we just focus on the literal problem description, which you could answer in like 3 minutes, instead of you trying to s…
Yeah the whole premise of the "XY" problem seems like it was written up by someone who regulars Stack Overflow. It's pretty frustrating when the highest-upvotes answer to a question is "actually you don't want to do that. do something else instead".
It wasn't. Mark-Jason Dominus was the cause of that name.
I, Raymond Chen, Charles Cazabon, and Eric S. Raymond didn't use that name at all.
I, in particular, chose a name that reinforced the an important part of the concept, missed in this discussion here, that the problem was nonsensical as posed.
* https://jdebp.uk/FGA/put-down-the-chocolate-covered-banana.h...
Re: The XY Problem (2014)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah the whole premise of the "XY" problem seems like it was written up by someone who regulars Stack Overflow. It's pretty frustrating when the highest-upvotes answer to a question is "actually you don't want to do that. do something else instead".
It wasn't. Mark-Jason Dominus was the cause of that name. I, Raymond Chen, Charles Cazabon, and Eric S. Raymond didn't use that name at all. I, in particular, chose a name that reinforced the an important part of the concept, missed in this discussion here, that the problem was nonsensical as posed . * https://jdebp.uk/FGA/put-down-the-chocolate-covered-banana.h...
Thanks! But it was actually Greg Bacon (responding to my original article) who thought of calling the phenomenon "XY problem".
Re: The XY Problem (2014)
#20Oh just shut up about XY and help me with the Lisp compiler I need to debug so that I can keep track of my record collection.
Without people diverting into Y problems, we'd never have any tools.