Psychic Debugging

time to read 1 min | 39 words

I think that I am getting too much of those recently:

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29 Dec 2010
11:58 AM

Alex Vilela

What?

So is it true, you really can't read thoughts?

29 Dec 2010
12:33 PM

Justin Lee

HAHA!!! OMG that's a good answer. I get those kind of questions in my mailbox some times. Brilliant.

29 Dec 2010
13:39 PM

Tom Dietrich

Stop being smart and they stop asking questions.

29 Dec 2010
14:58 PM

bob

Does your product include a few bullet-proof simple real world examples or do the customers just try to implement it using the dribs and drabs of information they get from the blog?

29 Dec 2010
15:00 PM

Ayende Rahien

Bob,

Can you figure out which product he is talking about?

I certainly couldn't

29 Dec 2010
17:32 PM

Eric Malamisura

Ayende,

I sure hope this wasn't a customer, I respect your talents and your software but you may want to take a step back when it comes to customer service. It is just as important, if not more important in some respects as the quality of the software you deliver.

You may want to read this: http://www.ccpact.com/w/page/13949456/FrontPage

Don't get me wrong, I hate it when people email me clear out of the blue with random programming questions. Its very easy to be condescending and arrogant, its extremely taxing and difficult to be helpful and understanding to their problems. Thats the real challenge in business!

Also don't expect to get the information you need from a customer, on the first try or perhaps ever!

29 Dec 2010
17:32 PM

Daniel Auger

"Am i missing something"

Yes.

29 Dec 2010
17:36 PM

Ayende Rahien

Eric,

No, he wasn't a customer.

It would have been easier if he had been, probably

29 Dec 2010
17:42 PM

Baskin Tapkan

Really liked the opening..

Who are you?

..."

and a strong finish with the debugging advice. Haven'd used INotifyCollectionChanged extensively, but your physic advice is right on.

Wonder the person replied back?

Baskin

29 Dec 2010
18:37 PM

Christopher Bennage

Also missing: punctuation.

31 Dec 2010
15:18 PM

Wayne Molina

It was probably someone who stumbled on the blog and was trying to be given the tools/knowledge to do their job instead of being able to do the work themselves.

I see it all the time, although usually it's somewhere in the comments of a blog and not an actual email; a poorly-worded and vague comment that is along the lines of: "i am working on a similar problem please give me the code u used to fix this problem" and nothing else provided - obviously someone trying to pass themselves off as a programmer but without any clue what they're doing.

I would not have even replied.

31 Dec 2010
15:57 PM

Peter Morris

I'd have probably answered

"Why would I care?"

05 Jan 2011
08:17 AM

Mark Petrov

Sometimes it is just for fun: How many smart as..s will be answering some silly question?

And I have joined you all with my post

06 Jan 2011
12:24 PM

Arnis L.

@Mark Petrov that would be quite arrogant. :)

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Oren Eini

Oren Eini

CEO of RavenDB