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XY Problem

30 points by lentil_soup

by Gormo

3 subcomments

There's also the XY problem problem, where some people expect that every of a complex or unusual question is an instance of the XY problem, even when the requester really does just need a solution to Y.

by throwawayk7h

0 subcomment

Listen. If someone on stack overflow asks how to do X, do not tell them they don't want to do X unless you explain how they could do X. Maybe that poster would be better off not doing X, but someone else will come along some day who wants X for real.

by tyleo

1 subcomments

I’ve also seen a similar phenomenon where I really want to try Y and people just keep telling me a different way to do X that I’ve already tried.

by wduquette

1 subcomments

This is something I have known (but not by this name) since the early 90’s. A proposed feature a customer brings to you is almost never what they need. You must iterate with them to discover their real problem and move on from there.
I left a project once because the sponsor wasn’t letting us interact with the real customer to find the real need. That path only leads to doom and despair.

by BugsJustFindMe

1 subcomments

I've seen this before and it has always rubbed me the wrong way, and now I think I know why. This framing of answering questions as "wasted time and energy" is assholeish and contemptible.
It is also not an appropriate framework for a responder to follow, only for an asker to think about what they should be asking. And far far far too many people read it and take away from it a belief that they need to find out the real reason a person is asking a question before answering.
When a person asks a question, you do not need to understand why they are asking it. It does not matter that you cannot guess why they want to do or know something. Assuming and digging for an XY problem is just looking for an excuse to not answer the question.
If the question has an answer and you know the answer, answer it and be done. The knowledge is valuable even for its own sake. If not to the person asking, then to someone else who has the same question for another reason. If you want to probe further, do it after answering the question.
Because, goddamn, if you think it's annoying to be asked about something that you think is the wrong thing to do, it's really fucking annoying for someone to demand to know your backstory before deigning to answer a question as asked.

by jonathaneunice

0 subcomment

Asking about Y (or Z, or some other problem a few layers down) is common when yak shaving. Aka doing the thing that's needed to do the thing that's needed to do X. Not to be confused with the also-present problem of ADHD sequential distraction by some other unrelated problem (possibly one sighted along the way to eventually get X done).
It's a gross idealization that every problem can be directly solved, or is "shovel ready." In my world there are often oodles of blockers, dependencies, and preparations that have to be put in place to even start to solve X. Asking about Y and Z along the way? Par for the course.

by anthk

0 subcomment