This isn't a black-and-white tactic. If you do this with people who know their stuff, they will just take it as you undermining them.
That's because they realise that other party is simply trying to answer the question they wished was asked instead of the question that was actually asked.
Everything is great when you don't have constraints. If I, however, have to spend 30-60 minutes justifying something to you every time I come to you, then you definitely are the problem.
Using the wrong tool to solve a problem is not inherently problematic. If it's a one-off and it solves the problem, abusing an existing tools is about the finest engineering imaginable. Sure, if it's a long term solution to something important, I can understand the pushback.
As other commenters have said: I'm all for a deeper discussion provided two things:
1. Both of us have the time.
2. You actually answer the question I asked.
Not providing an answer is patronizing.
That might be true if you’re skilled in whatever the particular subject matter is.
But what if you’re not? Have you ever had a colleague that kept trying to solve problems the wrong way? Such people do exist.
I don’t personally withhold answers, but when I suspect something is amiss, I ask probing questions in order to better understand the deeper problem underlying the question. Then I collaborate on a better answer, if one exists, with my colleague.
Edit: this is why tech people are insufferable socially. In any other walk of life assuming you know more than someone is a manifestly obvious faux pas.
As a side note, experience isn’t a unidimensional value that is directly comparable. You can have more experience than someone else in one dimension, and the other person can have more experience than you in a different dimension. I’d never argue with my mother about how to perform a blood draw.
> experience isn’t a unidimensional value that is directly comparable. You can have more experience than someone else in one dimension, and the other person can have more experience than you in a different dimension.
When two such people communicate, it's rarely clear who knows more. Typically, I know more about the task I'm working on, and he knows more about X, and that's why I'm asking him about X. Sure, if he wants to know what I'm working on - happy to engage, provided he doesn't withhold the information I'm asking for.
Useful conversation relies on mutual purpose.
We need a word for the inverse of being XY'd for when someone asks an XY question but is too proud to accept there's a better alternative to X
you seem to completely misunderstand XY: it's not someone giving you the right solution to your problem which you aren't capable of arriving at yourself. it's someone telling you the problem you're having isn't the one you should be solving. it happens very frequently that some arrogant person is 100% certain X problem isn't possible, or isn't really happening, or isn't really the source of issues and they try to gaslight you into believing you've made a mistake in your reasoning and you should solve problem Y instead. you know... kind of like how you're doing right now...
But if you genuinely find that you're often being guided to Y when your actual need is X then perhaps you need to think about how you approach it. For example, are you including enough context of why you're asking the question in the first place?
In fact, if you're asking on a forum about how to solve X, be sure to add "because A, B, C" or you're just wasting everyone else's fucking time. The more details you put up front, the more apt you're going to get the answer you're looking for in the first place instead of wasting everyone elses time of exploring the problem space.
you sure you're not the one wasting people's time by demanding they convince you of something you don't have any need to be convinced of - like did you know that just answering a question at face value is a completely plausible option?
Funny term to use as it has a very particular meaning of something that cannot/should not be interpreted because it is well defined.
This is a common flaw of the programmer type, especially when they go about writing code and documentation. That is, that what they are writing can only be interpreted in one way.
Then they toss it out into the real world and it turns out every human has a different interpretation, the runtime operates differently based on the phase of the moon, and even the compiler seems to be making its own best guess based on undefined behavior.
The value of int is typically well defined, but once you start stacking up these well defined bits, subjectivity quickly takes over.
> 3. Figurative Usage ("Taking at face value")When used in everyday language as a phrase, "taking something at face value" means accepting a statement, situation, or person exactly as they appear or are presented, without digging deeper for hidden meanings, motives, or questioning their authenticity
...
not sure what version of the english language you're using but in colloquial english "taking something at face value" means having a good faith interpretation.
The fact you're complaining about the this, rather than modifying your own behaviour in a way that improves people's chances of helping you, seems quite extraordinary.