[derf_]

I mostly work on audio and video codec projects. You would not believe the number of people in this domain who come to us trying to do something insane that shouldn't be done in the first place. Of course, telling them that and dismissing them isn't helpful. But pretty much all you can do is ask, "Why are you trying to do that?" and work backwards. With luck you can set them back on the path towards success.

But a lot of people don't want to explain themselves or their reasoning, or get defensive when you imply that the time they just sunk into the approach they were taking was wasted.

It's helpful to remember that the people who have been working on a project for years might (but not always!) have a better perspective than someone who picked it up this week. If we're asking you "why", it's because we really are trying to help.

We're especially interested in figuring out how we can avoid leading other people down the path you went down (whether it's better documentation, or something else that would help). Because for every one who comes to us trying to do something insane, there's probably a hundred who are doing insane things and not telling us.

[kstenerud]

So then say "Do x, y, and z. But this is usually the wrong approach. Tell me what you're trying to do."

Don't be their babysitter. There's nothing more infuriating than "I know how, but I'm not going to tell you for your own good."

[dozzie]

> So then say "Do x, y, and z. But this is usually the wrong approach. Tell me what you're trying to do."

And never hear from them again, but later hit the shitty code you have just helped to producfe.

[WalterGR]

If we continue a bit further down that path we come to:

Well, you never know if they're skilled or unskilled hackers, but they're probably not very skilled. Or at the least not as skilled as I am. So no matter what you tell them, they're probably going to write shitty code I helped produce. Even if they have some skill, why take that risk?

So it's better to not bother even with the initial "Why do you want to do that?" gatekeeping and to just ignore questions entirely. They're just going to screw it up anyway.