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Stuck due to “knowing too much”

programmers.stackexchange.com

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Re: Stuck due to “knowing too much”

#41

Post by chmike »

frankc wrote: post #7

The moderation on programmers.stackexchange.com is completely overbearing. How can a question about analysis paralysis be closed for off-topic? If stackoverflow is for technical question/answer, what is the point the linked stackexchange if not for discussion of a common programmer problem like this? I see stuff like this closed all time time and it's really annoying.

86 people upvoted the question and 5 votes is all it takes to close the question ? So 5 people hold the truth on the validity an pertinence of a question ? How many people does it take to undesrstand that this moderation system is broken ?

Re: Stuck due to “knowing too much”

#42

Post by swalsh »

wpietri wrote: post #37

My solution to this is a simple kanban board. Trello.com is a good on-line one, but when possible I'll make them out of index cards or post-it notes on the wall. People think that a kanban board is a to-do list, but there's a subtle difference. The real heart of is limiting the number of work-in-progress items. That means that the backlog is less a to-do list and more a things-I-am-definitely-not-doing-now list. For…

Bloody genius!, I'm going to steal some post-it notes from the cabinet right now!

Re: Stuck due to “knowing too much”

#43

Post by wpietri »

chmike wrote: post #36
Aqua_Geek wrote: post #16

I also found myself getting stuck and over-engineering. Now, I try to take a phased approach to development: 1. Make it work. 2. Make it good (visually or otherwise). 3. Make it fast.

This good. But how do you handle it when designing a protocol and a data encoding ? You can't iterate.

All good design comes from iteration. You can certainly do with protocols and encodings. Look at the very first published swing at HTTP, for example:

http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/P...

From today's modern perspective, it's laughable. And that was just the first public bit. Surely he iterated some on his own before putting that out.

Re: Stuck due to “knowing too much”

#44

Post by michael_fine »

frankc wrote: post #7

The moderation on programmers.stackexchange.com is completely overbearing. How can a question about analysis paralysis be closed for off-topic? If stackoverflow is for technical question/answer, what is the point the linked stackexchange if not for discussion of a common programmer problem like this? I see stuff like this closed all time time and it's really annoying.

It's really frustrating how they keep doing this. Their users are begging, literally fighting with the mods over this, and they still don't allow it. If they are opposed to diluting the technical questions there, why don't they just make an programmer opinion stack exchange site?

This reminds me of the founding of Adobe, when Steve Jobs told them what he wanted, as did two other companied, and the refused, saying "We have this business plan, we raised $2.5 million, and this is what we said we're going to do." Thankfully, a man named QT Wiles explained to them that "You guys are nuts. Throw out your business plan. Your customers-or potential customers-are telling you what your business should be. The business plan was only used to get you the money. Why don't you rewrite a business plan that is focused just on providing what your customers want?"

This is the same position. SE needs to focus on what the customers want.

Re: Stuck due to “knowing too much”

#45

Post by wpietri »

swalsh wrote: post #42
wpietri wrote: post #37

My solution to this is a simple kanban board. Trello.com is a good on-line one, but when possible I'll make them out of index cards or post-it notes on the wall. People think that a kanban board is a to-do list, but there's a subtle difference. The real heart of is limiting the number of work-in-progress items. That means that the backlog is less a to-do list and more a things-I-am-definitely-not-doing-now list. For…

Bloody genius!, I'm going to steal some post-it notes from the cabinet right now!

Good luck! Feel free to contact me with questions.

My big starter tip is to make the work-in-progress column physically small. My current one limits the "working" and "on hold" columns to 3 items each. Whenever they fill up that's a sign that there's a problem in my process.

Re: Stuck due to “knowing too much”

#46

Post by wpietri »

antidoh wrote: post #34
benjaminwootton wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. If any StackExchange people read this please do something about this. It's a great site that fills a necessary niche but the moderation is killing it!

At this point it can't be done. StackExchange is the way it is by preference of the older controlling users.

Nah. The company controls the software, which gives them plenty of ability to change the game dynamics. The only problem is a lack of will.

Re: Stuck due to “knowing too much”

#47

Post by betadj »

Aqua_Geek wrote: post #16

I also found myself getting stuck and over-engineering. Now, I try to take a phased approach to development: 1. Make it work. 2. Make it good (visually or otherwise). 3. Make it fast.

Make it fast only when you have to! I've seen too many projects focus on performance before traffic comes, most of time traffic never comes.

Re: Stuck due to “knowing too much”

#48

Post by pooriaazimi »

chmike wrote: post #41
frankc wrote: post #7

The moderation on programmers.stackexchange.com is completely overbearing. How can a question about analysis paralysis be closed for off-topic? If stackoverflow is for technical question/answer, what is the point the linked stackexchange if not for discussion of a common programmer problem like this? I see stuff like this closed all time time and it's really annoying.

86 people upvoted the question and 5 votes is all it takes to close the question ? So 5 people hold the truth on the validity an pertinence of a question ? How many people does it take to undesrstand that this moderation system is broken ?

A few more stats:

- When I linked to it, it had 3,000+ visits. Now, it has 12,406.

- The question had 61 up-votes, and now has 90.

- It was fav-ed by 17 people, now it's fav-ed by 26.

Re: Stuck due to “knowing too much”

#49

Post by frankc »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #20
frankc wrote: post #7

The moderation on programmers.stackexchange.com is completely overbearing. How can a question about analysis paralysis be closed for off-topic? If stackoverflow is for technical question/answer, what is the point the linked stackexchange if not for discussion of a common programmer problem like this? I see stuff like this closed all time time and it's really annoying.

It might be off-topic for StackOverflow,but how on earth is this off-topic on programmers.stackexchange?! If such discussions are off-topic, then why did they create programmers.stackexchange in the first place?

That's exactly my point. I understand why this is not right for stackoverflow; that is for technical question and answer. But isn't this kind of question exactly the point of programmers stackexchange? How to overcome analysis paralysis is not relevant to programmers? Insanity.

Re: Stuck due to “knowing too much”

#50

Post by spolsky »

frankc wrote: post #7

The moderation on programmers.stackexchange.com is completely overbearing. How can a question about analysis paralysis be closed for off-topic? If stackoverflow is for technical question/answer, what is the point the linked stackexchange if not for discussion of a common programmer problem like this? I see stuff like this closed all time time and it's really annoying.

This is a rambling discussion, which Stack Exchange is not really intended for. There are lots of good places to have rambling discussions. We focus on answerable questions with specific answers, not long-winded, open-ended conversation starters. There are plenty of other sites for long-winded, open-ended conversation starters, including Reddit and Hacker News.

After a decade or so of operating sites for programmers on the Internet, I've learned that, left by themselves, ALL programmer online sites will rapidly deteriorate into:

* I hate my job, woe is me ("I hate my job too!")

* I'm not productive any more, oh dear ("Oh my god you took the words right out of my mouth!")

* And some nonsense about H1B visas.

These kinds of conversations are endless because, I'm sad to say, they represent a common problem among programmers. Discussing it as a means of therapy is a wonderful thing, but DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE, because Stack Exchange is 100% focused on questions with specific factual answers.

This hard and fast rule is actually WHY you love stack overflow so much. It's WHY the network works. It's WHY you click on the stackoverflow.com link in the Google results even if it's third. If we weren't strict about this stuff we wouldn't have such consistently high quality ANSWERS.

Just because "moderators" (actually, users) have deemed to close a question on Stack Exchange, doesn't mean it's a bad question, or that the person who asked it is bad. It just means that Stack Exchange is an edited, curated environment, not your livejournal. The very moderation that people complain about every time a popular question is closed is what has been making the site work so well.

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