So there's this traditional dialog, it goes something like this:
Patient: Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do that....In a closed source world this is pretty much the only version of the problem.
Doctor: ... then don't do that.
What happens is that the Doctor, being paid (monetarily and dignitarily) dispenses some advice. At a
minimum: Don't do that. But possibly: why not do <something else instead>?
Now, things get interesting in an open source environment. Actually it's happening with modern medicine too.
Instead of a patient saying to the doctor: It hurts when I do <this>. The patient asks: How can --
Hrm, this is tough. let's look at a better example of the doctor problem:
Patient: Doctor, doctor, i turn red when i'm out in the sun too long.
Doctor: then don't stay out in the sun without sun screen.
Our Patient (has alergies to face paint): Doctor, doctor, i need help applying this white face paint.
Doctor: puzzled. Why are you applying face paint?
Patient: Because whenever I'm out in the sun too long my face turns red.
Doctor: But you're alergic to face paint. And it doesn't block the UV radiation which causes skin cancer.
Patient: oh.
Doctor (to self): why didn't the patient ask about the sunburn?
How does this manifest in the software world?
I'll provide examples occasionally:- User hooks up multiple mozillas to a bookmarks file
- User observes that when a mozilla quits, it clobbers the bookmarks file
- User asks: how do i make mozilla write changes to the bookmarks file immediately
- What the user didn't notice: mozilla doesn't check to see if the bookmarks file is changed, so just updating the file more frequently doesn't solve the actual problem (<describe problem>).
what moral would i like people to learn from this?
Instead of asking for help trying to do something which people think would fix the problem they're having, simply describe the problem and ask what can/should be done.