The worst part of the XY problem is that it destroys searchability. If drag googles X and finds a thread where the gurus are answering Y, that’s great for the noob who asked the wrong question, and bad for everyone else. That noob didn’t need X, but someone else will probably need X sooner or later, and now the search results for X are full of Y.
Worse, if someone who needs X asks for X on stackoverflow, it could be closed as a duplicate, despite the fact that all the answers in the original thread are Y. Now it’s impossible to answer X.
I don’t think you quite understood the xy problem. A better way to explain the core concept is “don’t ask how to do your erroneous solution, ask how to solve your problem”, the corollary to this is “don’t just ask how to do something, explain why are you trying to do it or what you’re trying to accomplish with it”. This helps people to contextualize their answers when trying to help you. Remember that the problem is that the person is not asking for X because they don’t understand their problem in the first place. You’re right about stack overflow though, very useful info sometimes but incredibly toxic place most of the time.
Same as “don’t ask if you can ask a question, just ask directly”
https://dontasktoask.com/
I had never articulated this before, but this is good.
It’s a very common issue among programming/tech help communities.
Similarly, the XY problem: https://xyproblem.info/
The worst part of the XY problem is that it destroys searchability. If drag googles X and finds a thread where the gurus are answering Y, that’s great for the noob who asked the wrong question, and bad for everyone else. That noob didn’t need X, but someone else will probably need X sooner or later, and now the search results for X are full of Y.
Worse, if someone who needs X asks for X on stackoverflow, it could be closed as a duplicate, despite the fact that all the answers in the original thread are Y. Now it’s impossible to answer X.
I don’t think you quite understood the xy problem. A better way to explain the core concept is “don’t ask how to do your erroneous solution, ask how to solve your problem”, the corollary to this is “don’t just ask how to do something, explain why are you trying to do it or what you’re trying to accomplish with it”. This helps people to contextualize their answers when trying to help you. Remember that the problem is that the person is not asking for X because they don’t understand their problem in the first place. You’re right about stack overflow though, very useful info sometimes but incredibly toxic place most of the time.