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Help me ask why you didn't just

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Re: Help me ask why you didn't just

#51

Post by Edman274 »

jdbernard wrote: post #47
Edman274 wrote: post #41

Here's the suggestion: don't ask! What are you going to do with the information? If you ask and the answers are reasonable , then ... so what? What have you meaningfully learned? You've learned that an existing solution does not completely solve a problem. Now you understand the problem a little better, and you understand the shortcomings or deficiencies of a pre-existing solution a little better, but you're signalli…

Here's the suggestion: don't ask! This is bad advice and I hope nobody takes it. We learn from each other. I've very glad I didn't have to learn everything I know first-hand. Personally I am honored when people think highly enough of me to feel like they can learn from my experience. I also like learning new things, so if there was some obvious answer that I just missed of course I want to know about it! The correct…

I'm not saying "don't ask questions." I'm saying "Don't ask that specific question that specific way. Get the same information by asking about the problem that's trying to be solved for long enough that you come to the same conclusion that they did that an off the shelf solution doesn't work. And if that never happens and you're never led to believe that an off the shelf solution was inadequate, then just say so."

Re: Help me ask why you didn't just

#52

Post by cirgue »

"What's the motivation to not do x?" is my personal favorite way to be asked this, because there typically is a reason, and it's typically where the thorniest parts of the project lie. It's a good softball question to get to the non-obvious problems.

Re: Help me ask why you didn't just

#53

Post by btrettel »

kaelig wrote: post #49
Edman274 wrote: post #41

Here's the suggestion: don't ask! What are you going to do with the information? If you ask and the answers are reasonable , then ... so what? What have you meaningfully learned? You've learned that an existing solution does not completely solve a problem. Now you understand the problem a little better, and you understand the shortcomings or deficiencies of a pre-existing solution a little better, but you're signalli…

On large projects, it becomes impossible for anyone to understand how each line of code works and what the best solution should look like. In such a complex area, assertive code review comments could be counter-productive. In most cases, showing curiosity and asking questions in code reviews goes beyond educating yourself: it's also about providing "self serve" context for future developers who need to understand why…

You're right to mention context. In my own experience, when stating something that can be interpreted in multiple ways, whether it is interpreted good or bad by someone depends on what they believe the context of the statement is. It's my job to provide the correct context. Adding a disclaimer is one way to try to fix this, but I think for many people you need to provide context in your typical interactions with that person. The disclaimer is probably a good idea if who you are speaking with is unfamiliar with you, as there's not much context built up yet.

Re: Help me ask why you didn't just

#54

Post by Edman274 »

kaelig wrote: post #49
Edman274 wrote: post #41

Here's the suggestion: don't ask! What are you going to do with the information? If you ask and the answers are reasonable , then ... so what? What have you meaningfully learned? You've learned that an existing solution does not completely solve a problem. Now you understand the problem a little better, and you understand the shortcomings or deficiencies of a pre-existing solution a little better, but you're signalli…

On large projects, it becomes impossible for anyone to understand how each line of code works and what the best solution should look like. In such a complex area, assertive code review comments could be counter-productive. In most cases, showing curiosity and asking questions in code reviews goes beyond educating yourself: it's also about providing "self serve" context for future developers who need to understand why…

In the linked article, the quote that starts it is the following:

"Whenever you look at a problem somebody’s been working on for a week or a month or maybe years and propose a simple, obvious solution that just happens to be the first thing that comes into your head, then you’re also making it crystal clear to people what you think of them and their work."

So let me ask this - do you believe I'm responding to the case of tiny code reviews that happen daily with pull-requests, or do you think I'm responding to the scenario the article proposes - which is when someone asks why an off-the-shelf solution wasn't used after the implementors worked on their new solution for "weeks or months or years"?

I am responding to the question in the article (or at least what I understood it to be) and not to the more-common instance where this probably comes up which is in daily code reviews. There is a difference in asking why someone didn't choose X option when the amount of time they spent on a problem is one day versus one month. I am responding to the one month scenario. I believe code reviews happen more than once a month.

Is my response an understandable one?

Re: Help me ask why you didn't just

#55

Post by isidor3 »

My go-to would be "Do you know if sshd would work?" To me, framing it directly as a knowledge question, and to not appear as if you're coming from a place of authority (unless you know both their problem and your solution both well enough to solve it without running into edge cases, and how often does that happen?). They either know or they don't, or potentially have a reason for not trying in the first place. If they don't know and don't have a reason, it's a simple "well, that's what I'd try next, it could make things easy if it works" to get your suggestion out there, but you let them solve their problem (if it works...)

Re: Help me ask why you didn't just

#56

Post by positr0n »

Edman274 wrote: post #41

Here's the suggestion: don't ask! What are you going to do with the information? If you ask and the answers are reasonable , then ... so what? What have you meaningfully learned? You've learned that an existing solution does not completely solve a problem. Now you understand the problem a little better, and you understand the shortcomings or deficiencies of a pre-existing solution a little better, but you're signalli…

> Here's the suggestion: don't ask!

In addition to my learning (and other reviewers too embarrassed to ask a question they might be wrong about), I can't count the times I've asked a simple probing question about X and gotten a short response that includes "thinking about it more I realized that X is correct but I completely screwed up Y!"

Re: Help me ask why you didn't just

#58

Post by godot »

I agree that all of the versions the author listed are no good; they do sound just as condescending or maybe even worse than the original.

For myself, in a similar scenario, I tend to say "Can we just...?" Granted it's not enormously better, but I feel like using "we" (as a rule of thumb in any work conversation too, not just in this scenario) always lightens it up and makes it more like we're on the same team (which we are) instead of me vs you. (And if you want to be even more neutral, omit the "just", and say "Can we use sshd?")

Digging a little deeper though, the issue of whether someone takes you more lightly or more aggressively comes down to how they perceive you as a person (your personality) and what they already know about you. If you come across as a friendly and funny person every day (through lots of other things you can do), when you say "Can we just...?" it becomes easier to understand you as well-meaning and saying in a tongue-in-cheek way "I'm an idiot, here's a simple straightforward suggestion, probably won't work?" instead of "You are an idiot, here's a simple straightforward suggestion, why didn't you think of it".

Re: Help me ask why you didn't just

#59

Post by kentbrew »

Avoid "why." Instead ask about "how" and you'll get lots of "why" for free.

"I'm trying to visualize doing this without using sshd and am drawing a blank. It's probably something really basic I'm missing; would you mind telling me how you did it?"

Key here is to be genuinely interested. If all you want is to slap the other developer around they will know.

Re: Help me ask why you didn't just

#60

Post by hairofadog »

ikeboy wrote: post #32

"what happened when you tried sshd?"/"what went wrong when you tried sshd?"

This, but present tense, is my favorite. “What happens when you try x?” If they haven’t tried it, they can say, “hmm, I don’t know. Let’s see.” If they have, they can say, “it errors out” or “it sorta works but...” or whatever. In my experience it comes across as curiosity rather than judgement.
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