I don't know why I meet quite a few people in software engineering like this: they will intentionally lead you to get lost in the garden. To explain it better, let's use something we probably all understand: what is the square root of 4, or what is the meaning of square root of n? A person can say: it is like this: that's so as to find x, so that x times x is n. So 2 times 2 is 4, so square root of 4 is 2. Clear enough? No. The people I met will tell you these: you know, numbers exhibit this property that you can take the square root of it. Or you can take the cube root. Now, note that if you take square root of negative numbers, you can get imaginary numbers and together with the real numbers, they form complex numbers and there are numerous applications of using them. Now so when you go to calculus and Jacobian Transform, the imaginary numbers have many advantages... So you ask him: can you tell me simply what square root is? He then says: THIS is NOT the right way. You need to read the algebra book, the geometry book, and then you need to learn calculus, linear algebra, discrete math, and connect all the things you learn. I CANNOT tell you what square root is. And the funny thing is, some manager will support him: RIGHT, he cannot tell you what square root is. YOU NEED TO go through 3000 pages of math text, and yes, by the way, you need to fix this program that uses Newton's Method to find the square root of something by 3pm today. IT IS very fair to expect you to do this. What is this about, really? (I am not specifically talking about Apple, by the way). TC: 390k
Did anybody else faint reading this? Kudos to you OP for dealing with such folks.
This is true at so many levels !
This just shows you don't care to actually understand what you're working on and just want quick answers. "Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime" However I do agree that there are certain times where you only need to understand how the system operates at the interface level. If the API interface cannot be grasped without a *really long* explanation of the deep down design, it's likely a flawed API design...
If I’m working by myself sure. But in a meeting with multiple people, it needs to be straight to the point. We don’t have time for details that aren’t necessary to the decision
like I need to find out which flag to use for the production build vs dev build. Yeah, "this guy is a person who just wants quick answers"
If you can’t explain it to a five year old, you don’t understand it.
There's a difference between being unwilling vs being unable to explain. Teachers of true knowledge know their worth.
I started out at a small company with no documentation or unit tests for a 1M+ LOC codebase so I don't really run into this problem because I always try to avoid asking people for help and figure it out on my own. It makes the SWE job more fun because it feels like you're an investigator piecing together clues.
Fitness
Yesterday
2973
Very thin yoga pants
India
Yesterday
596
Any Indians Think Kashmir Should be Independent?
Cars
Yesterday
1626
Electric cars depreciate 10 times faster than gasoline cars
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1466
Absurdities of the Bay Area 😒
Tech Industry
Yesterday
671
How does Peter Principle apply to you?
Just tell us the real situation and dialogue :)
or I can tell you which company and group I work in