6 ms·
> If you want to work on the problem, you can do that when you're ready, at your own initiative, not in the middle of what you're actually trying to do. As I e
by JimDabell 17d ago
> If you want to work on the problem, you can do that when you're ready, at your own initiative, not in the middle of what you're actually trying to do.
As I explained earlier, what we were actually trying to do was debug the problem, and reading the error message was a necessary part of that.
It’s weird you’ve cooked up this little fantasy that the error message was getting in the way when it was the most important thing in the whole process and that was the entire point of the anecdote.
> Reflexively dismissing error message popups is reasonable behavior because they're almost always unhelpful.
Not when you’re trying to debug the problem the error message is telling you about!
- foxglacier 12d agoI'm justifying (via spleen venting) why someone would have the habit of reflexively closing popups without reading them. That that habit carries on even in the rare case where it would help is separate but shows how strong it can be. By the way, I've seen the exact same thing in a student I was teaching how to use computers. He was asking me what's wrong and demonstrated that an error popped up, which he immediately closed - several times in a row! At the time I thought he wasn't really trying to solve it himself so he didn't bother with the message but now I realize it's just how people have reasonably adapted to the obnoxious way computers keep jumping in front of you screaming for attention.