[BobbyTables2]

I actually hate reading posts that go “I can’t understand/fix this problem. Tried LLM…”

To me, such screams “I’m too lazy to do anything more than ask a LLM. I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas”

Show me you put a modicum effort and aren’t just looking to be spoon-fed the content from the first Google result that would have been found.

[jagged-chisel]

I get exasperated with the inexperience that I have run across for decades. Yes, I frobnicated the frobnitz, I transmogrified the bit twiddler, I wizzled the wobnosticator, (and this decade, I talked the three LLMs), and the problem still exists. What I really need to know is how the transmogrification affects frobnication, but no one has ever touched that configuration.

“Why would you even want to do that?”

I dunno, man, it’s the job I was given. Do you know or not? No. No one does.

I take a week to figure it out, I come back to the forum to post my response, and it’s automatically closed as off-topic.

*sigh*

[theamk]

> Why would you even want to do that?”

> I dunno, man, it’s the job I was given. Do you know or not?

That's pretty sad to hear, and that's the hardest thing about working with junior engineers (or nowadays, with LLMs). Someone made a wrong assumption that a thing is possible, gave the wrong instructions, or simply phrased things badly, and now that person (or LLM) is trying to solve the impossible task instead of exploring the alternative approaches.

If it's LLM, the solution is simple. For a human, I usually bypass them and go to their senior directly: "Hey, did you task jagged-chiesel to transmogricate the frobnicator? This is a pretty complex task and our transmogricators are not trally desinged to work on frobs. What was the task you were trying to solve? Perhaps it's time to look into fizz-buzzing instead?"

(Or alternatively, if I am feeling tired that day, I will simply say that I don't know rather than engage. Because working on complex tasks with someone with "I dunno, man, it’s the job I was given" attitude is an exercise in frustration and will likely increase amount of tech debt too)

[jagged-chisel]

So I went back to The Business and asked "why would you even want to do that?" and the answer is that it centers on business processes that I can't reveal due to NDA. Other technical people dismissing the problem with "why would you even ..." is not productive. Many, many times, I have indeed communicated the why to those I am seeking help from and they go silent. Telling them didn't help me solve the problem. Many times, the explanation is pretty involved and people-heavy and ... not important to solving the problem. And more often than you'd think, I'm just not allowed to tell you.

Now, if you think at the next level, perhaps you might suggest looking at the problem from an angle you've seen before; or that just occurred to you and hasn't yet become apparent to me. Or you happen to know an alternate product that provides something close to what I'm asking. Great, that's helpful!

Attempting to diagnose my client's or employer's asinine process - I have indeed already done that and it is indeed asinine, and not up for changing - is shortsighted, just like many of the neophytes I've worked with throughout my career.