well then you need to understand agriculture, animal husbandry, construction, woodworking, become a certified electrician, plumber and gas installer, brush up on sewing, first aid, and be prepared to starve to death or freeze to death if you fuck it up, or just die from standing on a rusty nail.
agriculture is the act of cultivating soil and producing crops…
should I go on or is that a good illustrative example of how the original request is so far reaching and unspecific as to be functionally useless.
It’s like asking “how do I make a game?”
a video game? a board game? a playground game? a card game? all of which require skills, disciplines, planning, research and understanding of mechanics that no one can summarize even in a single full length book, let alone a forum post reply.
In some situations I feel like there’s some validity to not answering the question and saying what someone should do instead. Like, for example, if someone asked me how to bypass a security mechanism I don’t think it would be wrong to say they shouldn’t do that and not provide instructions for how to do so. Further, you might even argue that it’s unethical for me to provide guidance that I know (or believe) is wrong.
This is why a root cause analysis is so important. I feel like often in those situations, the problem trying to be solved is really a symptom of the issue as opposed to the actual issue.
You’re not wrong, I absolutely agree. At least in the places I’ve been I do feel like things are more often wrongly considered an XY when they’re not though. And a lot of times people will just dismiss questions because “you shouldn’t WANT to do that” for dubious reasons they might have against it.
Honestly, I hate these kinds of replies.
None of them answered the question, they just told him that he was wrong for wanting it.
It’s just… Unhelpful.
well then you need to understand agriculture, animal husbandry, construction, woodworking, become a certified electrician, plumber and gas installer, brush up on sewing, first aid, and be prepared to starve to death or freeze to death if you fuck it up, or just die from standing on a rusty nail.
Ok, then explain those topics instead of just telling them they are wrong.
agriculture is the act of cultivating soil and producing crops…
should I go on or is that a good illustrative example of how the original request is so far reaching and unspecific as to be functionally useless.
It’s like asking “how do I make a game?”
a video game? a board game? a playground game? a card game? all of which require skills, disciplines, planning, research and understanding of mechanics that no one can summarize even in a single full length book, let alone a forum post reply.
welcome to IRC, SO and many other places. you’re always asking the wrong question and everything is an XY problem.
Sometimes true, sometimes not.
In some situations I feel like there’s some validity to not answering the question and saying what someone should do instead. Like, for example, if someone asked me how to bypass a security mechanism I don’t think it would be wrong to say they shouldn’t do that and not provide instructions for how to do so. Further, you might even argue that it’s unethical for me to provide guidance that I know (or believe) is wrong.
This is why a root cause analysis is so important. I feel like often in those situations, the problem trying to be solved is really a symptom of the issue as opposed to the actual issue.
You’re not wrong, I absolutely agree. At least in the places I’ve been I do feel like things are more often wrongly considered an XY when they’re not though. And a lot of times people will just dismiss questions because “you shouldn’t WANT to do that” for dubious reasons they might have against it.
Indeed.
Even if you try to convince them of their wrongness, at least also give an answer to the best of your abilities.