
A sticky problem that evaporated - weinzierl
https://blog.plover.com/tech/problems-that-evaporated.html
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folli
The ability to translate "Geek Boy" language to whatever relevant occupational
language the counterpart uses, is probably one of the most valuable soft
skills one can have.

Having worked as a bioinformatician on the interface of wet lab biologists and
software devs, this became blatantly apparent.

~~~
bsaul
I completely agree with you, and i think the problem is way worse than that :

Most IT people i know actually _like it_ when people outside their field don't
understand what they're doing when they're using jargon and acronyms and
technical slang. It makes them look bright (or so they think).

One thing i like to tell people outside the field is daily software
development is 99% convention over very simple concepts wrapped in jargon
(aka: that's the way it works because people designed it this way, and gave it
this name, not because of some fundamental law of physics), and 1% of "hard"
things (the very rare times in your carrier when you had to implement a brand
new complex algorithm yourself). The percentage may vary depending on the
particular job you have, but unless you're working in R&D that's pretty much
the idea.

Once you realize that you actually _are_ brighter when you manage to remove
all the cruft around what you're doing and explain it simply to "normal"
people, all of the sudden you're much more successful at doing it.

~~~
jcims
After digging a bit into machine learning i feel like there is a tendency to
be fancy with terminology. For example, do we really need to use the obscure
term ’stochastic’ when ’random’ exists?

~~~
Fredej
I do think there's some value in being able to tersely express your exact
point to a peer.

For example "a random process" could mean "any process in existence" whereas
"a stochastic process" clearly states stochastic as being a property of the
process.

I however agree that things can sometimes get a bit wrapped up in sounding
cool just to sound cool.

~~~
subroutine
As a rule of thumb you should never use a big word when a diminutive word will
suffice.

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vannevar
I think there is a very subtle point here worth noting. The people that Geek
Boy was talking to obviously understood the similarity between a computer
monitor and a television screen. But because of the context, where they were
being addressed by someone they knew to be an expert about things way outside
their experience, they assumed when he brought up a problem that it was also
outside their experience. Had one of their own colleagues brought up the exact
same point (and they easily could have), I expect they would've understood it
immediately. It was partly _their assumptions about their own ignorance_ that
prevented understanding in this case. I see this occasionally in myself, where
I'm talking with an expert in a field I'm unfamiliar with, I tend to assume
that whatever they have to say about it will be outside my understanding and
so I'm slower to understand something that, if it were communicated (even in
the same language) by someone I felt more parity with, I would get much more
quickly.

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riffraff
I remember a friend telling me a very similar story of many uears ago, where
they had to develop a website for some institution, and the client wanted some
screen to match the color of some traditional peace of paper.

So after explaining that it wouldn't work they spent a lot of time with the
product owner guy holding a bit of paper next to the monitor until the color
matched.

Then he walked out, only to run back upset after checking it on his laptop:
"you changed it!"

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dsalzman
I really hope this was Sky Mall. When I was younger I had a fantasy of flying
first class while perusing through the Sky Mall magazine. See something I
needed immediately and order it over the airplane phone that used to be in the
headrest and could cost $5.00 / minute. Now you can watch free movies on your
phone, but free WiFi or calling is still not the norm. Soon...

