in reply to Re^6: XY Problem in thread XY Problem
Actually, the first three of your quotes (at least) are very much the situation I'm talking about.
But I'm guessing there's some semantic hairsplitting going on here that I'm not sure is worth trying to track down.
Re^8: XY Problem (timeline)
by tye (Sage) on Dec 30, 2014 at 08:46 UTC
|
I think that the disagreement is mainly because "XY Problem" is specifically something that happens after the situation your quote describes.
- I wanted to do X.
- I decided to use Y for that.
- That just lead to another problem.
- I finally gave up and decided to ask for help.
- I tell y'all all about Y and my problem with it.
- I don't even mention X.
Only the last two items are "XY Problem". That those are reasonable even likely subsequent states after the first three doesn't really make the first three (your quote) equivalent with the last two ("XY Proplem"). Especially as the last one can easily not happen and yet the last one is really the crux of "XY Problem".
Though, having laid that out, I can see how the first three seem even more likely to be precursors to the last two. In fact, at the moment, I can't think of how your get to the last two without having gone through the first three. That still doesn't make them equivalent. But I do see a stronger connection between them then I previously had.
| [reply] |
Re^8: XY Problem
by jdporter (Paladin) on Jan 06, 2015 at 02:35 UTC
|
I am primarily appealing in this ... debate ... to history. Until you/someone decided that the ol' "Now I Have Two Problems" (NYHTP) scenario should be classified as The XY Problem, no one ever called it that.
I think you're getting confused by the fact that both scenarios (XY Problem as defined here, and your NYHTP) could be described using X's and Y's. It's true that the same pair of (X,Y) could occur in either scenario, but that doesn't mean the two scenarios are equivalent. For example, someone might ask for help with "parsing nested matching delimiters using regexes", when what they really want to do is parse XML. This would be an example of the XY Problem, even though it involved the inappropriate choice of regexes as a tool.
I shall define both in the simplest, plainest way I can, and then it should be clear how they are not the same at all.
- XY Problem:
- An engineer has a problem (X), and wants to get help with it. She decides to ask for help with a different problem (Y), because she believes that obtaining a solution for Y will somehow aid her in developing her own solution for X. She has (perhaps unintentionally) hidden her real problem behind a proxy problem.
- NYHTP:
- An engineer has a problem (X), and decides that a certain tool* (Y) will be useful in developing a solution for X. But Y comes with its own "problems" -- difficulty of learning, using, etc., whatever that might entail. She has compounded her engineering problem through the choice of a certain tool.
Do you see the differences? I can count three or four without even trying.
* "tool" in the broadest sense, of course.
I reckon we are the only monastery ever to have a dungeon stuffed with 16,000 zombies .
| [reply] |
|
In your description of an XY problem, it seems as if Y may be an unrelated problem to X. I wonder if I can do any better?
An engineer has a problem X, and (mistakenly or out of inexperience) hits upon Method B as the means to a solution. Applying this method to X results in problem Y, for which she seeks help. Answers that fix Problem Y will continue to conceal the poor choice made earlier. If the questions had been about X, time-tested Method A would have been suggested.
| [reply] |
|
| [reply] |
|
if you're going to appeal to history, then you should just cite one or more sources and be done with it. I.e., who actually coined the term and how did they use it?
(... it being not entirely unusual to find the original usage turning out to be something quite different from what you might have expected..)
| [reply] |
|
FWIW, I agree with jdporter’s interpretation completely. And while twisting original usage/meaning is common, it muddies clarity and without a certain level of pedanticism in communications we risk developing things like lawyers.
| [reply] |
|
|
I have, btw, never claimed that your (hyperspecific) XY and NYHTP scenarios aren't different. The question at hand is whether the differences are ones that actually matter, whether there's a point to reserving the term "XY Problem" for the more narrowly defined situations, and right now I'm not seeing it.
My understanding, and there seems to be at least some agreement on this, is that the essential feature that makes an XY Problem what it is is that of being excessively focused on the use of tool Y to solve problem X, to the point where you might be missing more obvious solutions of X that are right under your nose.
The question of exactly how you're going about asking for help, that you might be forgetting to mention X at all, is, I would say, simply a symptom, not an essential feature.
Note, btw, that if one is not actually asking for help, then we're simply not observing the problem. That doesn't make it any less real.
| [reply] |
|
|