XY Problem. If someone is looking for a fix on Y, ask them first: "What's the X?"

Nope, XY problem doesn't mean men are troubles lol


There are certain class of developers that are too enamored with their codes, that when they ask for help they will proudly show their codes first and ask help on those codes, rather than stating the problem itself first


So what is XY problem? That's the terminology for the scenario above.


"The X-Y Problem, as it is sometimes called, is a mental block which leads to enormous amounts of wasted time and energy, both on the part of people asking for help, and on the part of those providing help. It often goes something like this:

* User wants to do X.
* User doesn't know how to do X, but thinks they can fumble their way to a solution if they can just manage to do Y.
* User doesn't know how to do Y either.
* User asks for help with Y.
* Others try to help user with Y, but are confused because Y seems like a strange problem to want to solve.
* After much interaction and wasted time, it finally becomes clear that the user really wants help with X, and that Y wasn't even a suitable solution for X.
" -- http://mywiki.wooledge.org/XyProblem


So the next time around, before you even show how awesome your coding skills are, remember first that other people's time and energy are important, don't let it go wasted. Tell your X first, before you even show your Y.


Friends don't let friends waste time or energy on fixing the Y when a Y could even be discarded and go for a better solution when X is stated first.


The best code is no code at all. Code, especially the longer ones, distracts us from stating the intent/problem of the application.



Some developers just love to provide solution, even if it meant not writing a single line of code. They'll just purchase a Microsoft Word and sell it to you with a nice markup for their troubles heading to a software shop, and sip Pina Coladas on the beach the rest of the day. Ok, a lot of context is missing here, that's why this paragraph looks weird. See the XY problem connection on this paragraph? Y often looks weird if X is not stated. For the X, head to this blog post: http://haacked.com/archive/2010/08/26/not-paid-to-write-code.aspx



Other good sources on XY problem:

http://blog.spitfiremanagement.com/2013/04/10/avoid-the-xy-problem/


http://daniel-lange.com/archives/69-The-XY-problem-in-IT-management.html


"The XY problem is when you need to do X, and you think you can use Y to do X, so you ask about how to do Y, when what you really should do is state what your X problem is. There may be a Z solution that is even better than Y, but nobody can suggest it if X is never mentioned." -- http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem