The XY solution
3 points by runxiyu
3 points by runxiyu
I dunno, Wikipedia[0] says X is the asker's solution and Y is their problem. It seems like there's not agreement on what X and Y are. Defining the "XY solution" where X is the problem and Y is the answerer's solution confuses me.
Wikipedia's Y is easier to remember from the question "Why?".
By the way, this article reminds me of other reasons to build something without existing tools: fun and learning. I think Joe Armstrong[1] put it very nicely:
Writing something like a web client or a server is great fun. Sure, other people have already written these things, but if we really want to understand how they work, digging under the surface and finding out exactly how they work is very instructive. Who knows -- maybe our web server will be better than the best.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
[1] Armstrong, Joe. Programming Erlang. Pragmatic Bookshelf, 23 Sept. 2013, p. 266.