Ask HN: What tactics do you use to explain things to non-developers?

1 pointtbirrell1 comment

Sometimes we have to justify what we are doing to people who don't understand the jargon, the concept, or why it matters. So what do you do to help get the idea across? What analogies (if any) have you found to be most effective? Are there any other go-to strategies you have for bridging this gap?

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I honestly make terrible automotive analogies. Most people I talk to have driven a car or have at least ridden in one, so it's a good basis for shared understanding. Making the analogies obviously bad shows that programming is subject to human faults and conveys that programmers aren't necessarily smarter or better than anyone else. We're just as liable to misunderstand things or make mistakes, and that's a useful piece of information for non-developers, who tend (in my experience) to regard developers as wizards.

Correcting my terrible analogies is an object lesson in the software development process, too.

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