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The XY Problem (2014)

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Re: The XY Problem (2014)

#101

Post by marcosdumay »

matsemann wrote: post #87
marcosdumay wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're spending their own free time helping Oh, man, if it's such a bother, just don't. Nobody is forcing you to spend your own free time. But well, let's be clear. This is a Stack Overflow problem only. And it's Stack Overflow only because every interaction on that site includes a veiled threat of "do what I say or I'll make sure nobody ever answers your question and you are blocked away from this site". Any unre…

From me reviewing thousands of questions in the review queue, odds are you're the one in the wrong. You perhaps only see the cases that actually survived. When you have to weed through a hundred questions to see the one of any actual quality, it's no wonder people seem a bit jaded. I know it's a meme here that SO is super bad, but no one would visit if it didn't have the strict moderation. It would be a waste field o…

Yeah, that model of unpaid people weeding through thousands of questions in a review queue... is not a great one.

Just the fact that SO made it barely work is incredible.

Re: The XY Problem (2014)

#102

Post by pishpash »

proto_lambda wrote: post #50
pishpash wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Just answer the fricking question or I'll replace you with a bot. Please do, it'll save everyone a lot of time and headache, especially if this is representative of your usual mode of communication.

If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. Real engineers find solutions to ill-posed problems every day.

Re: The XY Problem (2014)

#103

Post by [deleted] »

matsemann wrote: post #25
relix wrote: post #8

I 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…

I'm sorry, but if people often do this to you, maybe reflect on them actually being right? Or that you're legitimately asking a stupid question given your self-proclaimed lack of expertise? People don't answer that way to be smug or so. They do it because the thankless person they're spending their own free time helping will just come back with a new asinine question the moment one answers their posed question. It's…

[deleted]

Re: The XY Problem (2014)

#104

Post by [deleted] »

skohan wrote: post #100
pickledish wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > the context is quite hard to explain but I assure you I thought through this question and this is precisely what I need to know I dunno, I mean, to me this just sounds like the "senior developer" phrasing of the same logic that the noob was using in the linked page. The core problem is that you don't know what you don't know, right, and no one is immune to that, regardless of age or experience. IMO that we should…

In some cases the context is hard to explain because it's complex, or it relates to something about the domain of the use-cases which is very particular to this implementation. If all you need is some small detail, like how to accomplish something with X library, it would be a waste of everyones time to write several paragraphs to explain some context which will be irrelevant to everyone else.

[deleted]

Re: The XY Problem (2014)

#105

Post by relix »

matsemann wrote: post #25
relix wrote: post #8

I 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…

I'm sorry, but if people often do this to you, maybe reflect on them actually being right? Or that you're legitimately asking a stupid question given your self-proclaimed lack of expertise? People don't answer that way to be smug or so. They do it because the thankless person they're spending their own free time helping will just come back with a new asinine question the moment one answers their posed question. It's…

Of course, because every time it happens, unless I don't want the answer, in order to move forward I do need to explain the context.

So I do. And invariably either the original responder goes radio silence, or admits that my question is the correct one and they can't help me with it.

I think saghm really hit the nail on the head with his YZ answer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36080243

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