Comments on: Troubleshooting.

By: Aliya Walji

Aliya Walji — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:52:57 +0000

Ok this is clearly not as thoughtful a reply as the others but still, somewhat on topic. I’m thinking of printing this and giving it to my boss:

http://xkcd.com/627/

By: Hélène Martin

Hélène Martin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:44:25 +0000

Hi, Jim! That’s a really good analogy you make… especially given my background. You are good, sir! Here’s the thing, I actually get a lot more annoyed when people ask me how many languages I speak when I say I have a linguistics degree than when I’m asked to fix a computer because I have a CS degree. In a way, I feel like the latter is ok — I should understand my field’s tools. The former is kind of like asking a marine biologist how many lions he’s dissected because, well, he’s a scientist who works with animals. Or something. Linguists generally study how either a particular language works or what abstract principles govern the process of language. As Jim knows.

Part of the reason I’m ok with being asked to fix a computer is exactly what Sylvia brings up. I should be able to figure it out because I’m a problem solver. I don’t understand these other folks who find it beneath them to care or know: if they can’t figure it out, then they’re just not very good at solving problems, which is Not Good!

By: Sylvia

Sylvia — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:47:39 +0000

This is an interesting topic you bring up. And I totally agree with Craig about the asking the right question. I also think that the reason computer scientists are better at doing that than other people is that we are around computers all the time and have experience using them and sometimes breaking them (whether intentionally or by accident). Over time we learn to not be afraid of the computer and learn how various things interact with each other (even if only on a surface level, such as key settings being different for various applications). When it comes to solving the problem we have ways to narrow things down and maybe a few guesses as to what's wrong. And if we need to we know how to ask Google too. Other people always seem to think that the problem is something really complicated and even if they searched they either wouldn't get the right query or wouldn't understand the solutions that came up. So they don't bother. They ask their tech-savvy friends instead. I don't think there's really a way to teach troubleshooting. People just have to know that often it's not that complicated and they can do it themselves if they tried. Perhaps if you had a list of common problems and how to troubleshoot them, it would give students a starting point from where to go or perhaps ideas as to what could have went wrong. Show them that it's not that complicated. (And here are some pictures for relevant amusement: L'problem Building experience! But really, computers are nice. )

By: Jim Gold

Jim Gold — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:08:35 +0000

Your introduction reminded me of the first class session of my Linguistics 101 class a few years ago. The professor asked us to guess what the most common question he received when he told a stranger that he was a linguist. There were a couple odd guesses from my classmates, but I guessed it was “How many languages do you know?” and I was right. As a polyglot yourself, it might not be a terribly maladroit question, but my professor only knew English fluently (though he admitted that he knew a little Japanese), so it was a consistently awkward way of starting a conversation at a social event.

As for troubleshooting, in particular, I think your example (along with any number of other examples you or I could produce) just go to show that there are significant differences between people in their willingness and ability to analyze problems (technical or otherwise), and even to be able explain whatever problems they have (i.e. constructing the right Google query to get the intended search results). It’s kinda fascinating how, I imagine, most people out there manage to get through life without being able to answer a large portion of the questions that may go through their mind every day, assuming those questions even occur to them in the first place.

Hi!

By: Hélène Martin

Hélène Martin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:01:40 +0000

Interesting anecdote. I think you’re absolutely right that asking the right question is most of the battle!

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:43:59 +0000

I would assert that 90% of “knowing how to fix computers” is knowing how to ask the right question. Awareness of which search terms are likely to drill down to what you’re looking for is both a learned skill and a problem of vocabulary. I was much less effective at helping people in Japan because I just didn’t know what words to search for in Google.