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It amazes me how people fail to communicate when speaking about technical matters. I’m sure you have heard this refrain: “My computer doesn’t work” or perhaps “Program XYZ blows up”. Ok, in the general sense there is some information being conveyed here. Often times the speaker is not merely providing a fact but asking for help in a very oblique manner.
Before you think I’m picking on the poor newcomer, I’m not. Its rather remarkable that people who are proficient in a technical dialect (i.e. programming language or systems) can be completely inadequate in communicating technical details. Often you have to pry it out of them — “What was the error message?” or “What programming language?” or even “What project?”.
As a developer I rely on error messages, stack traces, log files and whatever else I can get my hands on to troubleshoot a problem. Sure I fail to be specific at times — nobody is perfect — but to solve a technical problem you need details!
Perhaps I’m just getting old and cranky (Ok, older and crankier) or maybe its just Monday…
