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Comment by eszed | Hacker News Reader

I don't know the circumstance of your tech exile, but I'd encourage you to take advantage of it to do something other than code! If you're going to be in nature, be in nature. If you're going to be with people, be with people. Those are the sorts of experiences you'll treasure, later in life, far more than a few more days of "productivity".

If none of that applies, and you still want to learn something to do with tech? Well, you know this won't be an ideal situation to engage directly with a system. How about zooming out a bit? Read some books. Some of Stallman's essays. Clifford Stoll. Or anything else more recent that you think is big-picture significant to your field. Your situation will be ideal for contemplation, which will in the long-term make you a better contributor to whatever projects you take on.

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It's really annoying to answer a question by telling the asker that you know better and they should do something else. This person cared enough about this question to ask it to a community on the internet. Have the humility to answer their question instead of telling them that you're wiser than them.

Tell me that in the real world, if you ask a question, you will get only answers and no opinions.

Internet is the same. You ask and someone made the effort to voice their opinion on something and you have to put the effort into figuring out if they would fit your situation. If not, continue on.

Yes, but programmers are a special case. We all know that our industry is characterized by a pervasive desire to prove we know more than others. So we should rein it in more than elsewhere.

Tell me about it. Lots of people do it, but there’s something about programming that brings the alpha nerds that think contrariness is by itself interesting or impressive. So boring to talk to these people — it’s impossible to build common ground as they will disagree or argue a point not because they actually believe their case, but because they think that’s how you sound smart in a conversation.

Nope, you just sound like an asshole.

The 'do something else' is the community caring. Perhaps it's incorrect, but it's worth looking into. I can't imagine what situation is so competitive that on week of lost Figma design/React building/or learning something new so so catastrophic so as not to be permitted. Perhaps I'm misreading and the activity is so boring but required that carrying on computing is better--I've certainly done that.

The only time I would be very annoyed by such responses is if that's all the responses I got. Some of both is reasonable: perhaps I did pose an XY problem.

> The 'do something else' is the community caring. Perhaps it's incorrect

If the community cared, wouldn’t they answer the question instead of ignoring the question that was asked?

The community didn't ignore the question, see the other replies. I said that it would be annoying if these types of replies were all I received. And my other post does give a suggestion.

I agree. Sure, maybe I will soak in the nature but I'm not going to do that 24/7 for a week. Some days I might just want to program in said nature while sitting outside.

This is a classic example of the xy problem https://xyproblem.info/, where the author is asking for advice on his solution (how to study react on a vacation without internet), when for the vast majority of circumstances the best advice for the author would be to not waste his vacation studying React.

You don't seem to understand what a conditional is.

_Given_ that I want to study React in the woods, how should I do it?

Whether or not to study React in the woods is completely irrelevant.

> You don't seem to understand what a conditional is; you'd have a hard time doing math or formal CS.

Ad hominems are against TOS.

Answering the question is irrelevant if it’s the wrong question to begin with. And for the wrong circumstances (ie if this is a family vacation) can be counter-productive. It’s far more productive to zoom out, ask why the author is asking for advice to study react on vacation, and address that instead. Consider this as you advance your career past recent college grad / swe1 :)

I'm sorry but I find your position and expressed attitudes to be patronizing. They are words I would expect from someone who's assumption is that they know better than the other people they talk to in life.

I've no idea what you meant by your reference to college grad / swe1 but it certainly didn't lessen the above-described impression.

Thats all fine and dandy for a site like StackOverflow, but we’re on HN here - there’s neither an obligation for commenters to write the comments you want to read, nor a guarantee your question will be understood the way you like.

I think eszed had a good point. I do appreciate the philosophy of taking in what you are doing in the situation rather than turning it into a code-fest. I have attempted that and failed. It just felt like forcing a situation that didn't work. Just take things as they come.

I also think that answers like this are one of many. Let people put in their 2 cents. I think it's great to have a variety of answers that approach the question differently.

I’ve also noticed that in threads about stack overflow people often complain that questions are answered with “do something else”.

And here, “do something else” seems a popular answer too. Perhaps it’s how we approach problem solving in general.

I think it's laziness: rather than solving a specific problem, it's much easier to pick from an infinity of other problems you can solve.

It’s because tech people are often fed XY problems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem

The person asking the question is asking how to do something, instead of explaining what the problem is.

Without an explanation of what the problem actually is, you have to guess.

Solving XY problems without getting at the root issue can create endless amounts of needless effort for many people, which is why discussion and communication are so important.

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