Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Just don’t

tbray.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 464 posts

Re: Just don’t

#21

Post by mastermedo »

sfpotter wrote: post #8

I mentor students on research projects. I think it can be fine to use the word “just” in this context exactly to telegraph that I think a particular task should be easy. Student says, “But what about X?” I might say, “Oh, just do Y.” It’s fine if they feel the tension of me knowing how to do something and thinking it’s easy and them not. The key part is providing a supportive environment so that they know they can as…

I’m not sure I agree. I’m a very outgoing extroverted person, and even I feel cut-off when someone points out they think something is super easy, especially when it’s really not easy.

Just a few weeks ago at work, one of the TLs told me I should ‘just do X’, and when I pushed back saying it’s going to take a few weeks, he said ‘oh it’s just a couple of lines, I can do it in 10 minutes’. I challenged that. 5 integrations and 2 weeks later we had a first working version, that caused more harm than good in the end because of an assumption that didn’t hold.

I think easy things might be easy in theory, but not necessarily in execution. So when a student comes to you, I suspect they have thought about theory, but find the execution hard because of the knowable unknowns they are not aware of and you are. Many times people don’t even propose things that might seem obvious to them out of fear they might say something stupid. Indicating something is easy in a demeaning fashion is bad. Phrasing it differently has a different effect. E.g. Oh, I think that might be solved with X. It should be relatively straightforward. Look at the work I did , it should match your use case.

Re: Just don’t

#22

Post by XCSme »

XCSme wrote: post #19
wodenokoto wrote: post #4

I really wish there was a version of "just" and "only", that has the connotation of there is one and only one thing, but not the connotation of that being trivial. Something that expresses "there is 1 thing and that makes it a big deal!"

"Just do the dishes." "It is sufficient to do the dishes." ?

Or maybe instead of "did you just try clearing the cache?", "would clearing the cache solve it?".

Re: Just don’t

#24

Post by [deleted] »

wodenokoto wrote: post #4

I really wish there was a version of "just" and "only", that has the connotation of there is one and only one thing, but not the connotation of that being trivial. Something that expresses "there is 1 thing and that makes it a big deal!"

[deleted]

Re: Just don’t

#25

Post by krono »

ISL wrote: post #16

I like to use the word "just", but find that it frequently makes my writing worse. Furthermore, I find that it is often easy to write a sentence that contains the word in order to get a thought out of my head and then simply remove the word. Just give it a try someday... ;).

This is how I've seen most professional writers work too, except they edit quick in-place copies of previous iterations in case some path doesn't work out. Should sound somewhat familiar to programmers.

Re: Just don’t

#26

Post by sfpotter »

mastermedo wrote: post #21
sfpotter wrote: post #8

I mentor students on research projects. I think it can be fine to use the word “just” in this context exactly to telegraph that I think a particular task should be easy. Student says, “But what about X?” I might say, “Oh, just do Y.” It’s fine if they feel the tension of me knowing how to do something and thinking it’s easy and them not. The key part is providing a supportive environment so that they know they can as…

I’m not sure I agree. I’m a very outgoing extroverted person, and even I feel cut-off when someone points out they think something is super easy, especially when it’s really not easy. Just a few weeks ago at work, one of the TLs told me I should ‘just do X’, and when I pushed back saying it’s going to take a few weeks, he said ‘oh it’s just a couple of lines, I can do it in 10 minutes’. I challenged that. 5 integrati…

You missed the part of my post where I said that I work hard to create an environment where it’s OK to ask questions.

My point is that it’s not just about the language you use. Not saying “just” isn’t a magic bullet. Regardless of the phrasing, there’s a lot more pedagogical work that needs to take place to build a good environment.

Re: Just don’t

#27

Post by mbreese »

andsoitis wrote: post #12
pornel wrote: post #6

Related: if someone has a chronic condition, don't drop on them unsolicited medical advice, especially things like "have you tried yoga?", "you just need more sunshine", "you must try my cousin's healing tea!". You're not their doctor, and they haven't shared all the medical details with you. Your 3-second diagnosis is almost certainly terrible. They've heard it a dozen times already, and it's difficult and tiring to…

what if they complain about it chronically? are you then justified to offer unsolicited advice, or do you have to just listen (i.e. be their outlet)?

Most people don’t want you to solve their issues. They just want you to listen and understand them. If someone asks for advice, that’s another thing entirely. But I’ve learned over the years that just listening and appreciating what someone else is feeling is the most helpful thing you can do.

Re: Just don’t

#29

Post by kayodelycaon »

The corollary to just is "should". It took me a while to accept some things aren't trivial to change and telling myself things should be a certain way is not helpful.

Almost every advice I come across on self-improvement is wrong for me. Very few people have considered my experience and limitations. Most of it is actively harmful to implement.

Funnily enough, the project management strategies I use at work are extremely helpful with this.

Given a problem (a "should"), we need ask "what needs to change", "what is required to change it", and "what is the priority" (urgency X impact). Then we can decide if this needs to be focused on right now.

:)

Re: Just don’t

#30

Post by bombcar »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #7

I get a lot more mileage out of "have you tried..." than "why don't you just...". As a recent example, I wrote a system that auto-generates PDF packing slips from an order form, to send to a warehouse for picking and packing. Yesterday a client told me to "just make it landscape" while I was explaining why "just making it landscape" won't solve the problem of giving the warehouse whitespace to pencil stuff in, becaus…

I would have taken it as "this portrait packing slip has what we need, now scale and rotate and put it on the left of the same size paper" - and then gone over to the warehouse and grabbed a few copies of what they did.
Post reply on HN