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XY Problem And Asking Good Questions

XY Problem And Asking Good Questions

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Steve Huynh
Nov 01, 2023
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A Life Engineered
A Life Engineered
XY Problem And Asking Good Questions
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If you've been in software development long enough, I'm certain you've encountered these types of questions:

  • "I'm getting a NullPointerException. How should I handle it?"

  • "Our users find the interface confusing. How can we make the UI more appealing?"

  • "Our system is slow; we need to make it faster. How can we optimize our database queries?"

These questions exemplify a common issue: people often ask about attempted solutions instead of trying to determine the root cause of the problem.

The XY Problem

This tendency is the heart of the XY Problem, where individuals ask about attempted solutions (Y) instead of focusing on the root problem itself (X). The name comes from the idea that instead of addressing problem X, which you don't know how to solve, you think you can solve it with Y, which you also don't know how to do, but you believe it's a smaller-scoped question, so you ask about it instead.

Let's break down the examples:

  1. If you're encountering a NullPointerException, there's likely some mis…

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