Roman Podolyan 5:30 PM
I'd like to add to the
@michaelbolton's announcement some explanation why it is very important to add not just context, but also intentions.
A lot of times I observed a problem not just with "Has anyone used SomeProduct?" -- which is sort of extreme case, but with things like
1) "I need AccountAlpha"
2) "How to do ThingTheta with ToolThomas?"
"What can go wrong here?", you may ask.
1) One thinks that AccountAlpha helps them to create EntityEcho.
But they don't really need AccountAlpha to create EntityEcho! They need AccountBeta, which they already have, just forgot the password. I happily reset the password for them, and the problem solved.
2.1) People ask about ThingTheta and ToolThomas to extract DataDelta from ResourceRomeo. But ToolThomas is not any good choice for the task. If I just tell them about ThingTheta, they would be worse off, still trying to do the task using tool which is not built to help them, but there is ToolTango which is built exactly to do what they want.
A man asked me how to insert delay for parsing a site with a library for HTTP requests. I asked him if he tried to eat soup with a fork, with delays, of course, and if delays could help that. Then told him that he choice of tool for web scraping is totally wrong and suggested web scraping library.
2.2) Another case could be when there is no good solution for exactly ThingTheta and ToolTomas. But after small manipulation on ThingTheta one can use ConverterChase, which makes input ToolThomas can easily digest.
A man asked me how his automation can extract data from an Excel table. "Just save Excel into .csv, reading which is has lot better support", I told him.
2.3) The thing they want to do will bring them problems in the future. It's good to warn them before it's too late.
Example: people want to push results of automated checks into test management system. If they do, in the long run they will have bloated database, which will fail even simple search queries, -- while they don't really need that checks results in the database for any sane use.
Or they may need special results/reports storing software.
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I hope these examples show that telling more about what you need and what you want to do with something can get you better help and also help to avoid some pitfalls on your way. (edited)