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Comment by anotherangrydev | Hacker News Reader

This is stackoverflow.

"I want to draw a square in an HTML Canvas"

"Why?" "Why not use python?" "Circles are better than squares, just saying" "It is not possible to draw a square usign that language, it was not designed to do that" "It depends on what type of screen you're using" "Are you sure you want to draw a square in the screen?" "How do you define a square?" --> "10 Downvotes, closed as not constructive"

And later, but only if you're lucky:

"c.getContext("2d").rect(20,20,150,100).stroke();"

View on HN

This is especially bad when you are posting in a Q and A forum like Stack Overflow and I see it happen constantly to myself and others. A year down the line if I search how to solve X problem I may not even want the same end result as the OP of the SO post and then nobody has even solved the original problem, just suggested alternatives that are useless for me. If I make a post, someone will inevitably close it as a duplicate of that question. Very frustrating.

Oh goodness yes.

"You don't NEED a car, I use four shopping trolleys bolted together with an outboard motor. It's so much better." G+ post: https://plus.google.com/111502940353406919728/posts/DKDCbDGr...

And past discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9084152 'My buddy and I call that "I asked how to use a ladder, you told me to take the elevator" syndrome. I'm picking apples!'

It's typical mind fallacy in weird people who don't realise how non-normative they are.

Definitely Stack Overflow, but it's a long-standing problem that existed long before that. "Assume the user doesn't really want what they asked for."

In the late 90s the ultimate condensation of this was to answer any computer question with "install Linux."

See this classic blog post for a counterpoint: Pounding A Nail: Old Shoe or Glass Bottle?

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:weblogs...

I remember a question in asking for what kind of keyboard they could buy to type faster. The question got closed while I was preparing my answer: a stenotype.

More often than not, newbie questions on SO are XY questions, so I guess it creates a bias. I actually got downvoted many times for answering the actual question when most people thought it was the wrong way to achieve the broader goal, even though it was a correct answer.

So usually if I do it, I try to answer the question, and add my opinion on what the better approach might be.

not enough jquery http://www.doxdesk.com/img/updates/20091116-so-large.gif

That's not a square.

Link?

StackOverflow certainly has its issues but absurd hyperbole like this only makes your argument weaker.

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