Converging to a solution

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:57:39 -0000
dcg, debian, eng, pdo, tips

Sustain a discussion towards solving a problem is sometimes more important than solving the problem.

I can't decide if this is trivial or counterintuitive. Anyway it's been quite enlightening when it came out. I once took this note:

I found that with my projects, when someone posted a mail about a problem I would work maybe some days to find a solution, and just post the solution at the end.

However, now I realised it's more costructive to have the problem-solving process itself happen online. This way, instead of keeping people waiting in silence for a few days they can get quicker feedback and extra informations, and they also have a chance to participate to solving the problem before I manage to.

For example, when I have to interrupt to go home or sleep, someone else can pick it up and do another step.

Plus, the entire problem-solving process remains documented, which will provide more written information for future readers.

This note was from a few months ago; however, I still fail to do it. Bad habits are sometimes hard to change. Please kick me about it :)