[X4U] Clipboard question [NOISE]

[Michael Winter]

On Sep 16, 2004, at 2:35 PM, Al Simcoe wrote:

> My question did have all the info necessary to come up with a good 
> answer.

Not necessarily, and not necessarily the best answer. That generally 
requires getting as much information as possible (asking questions) to 
make sure one fully understands the problem. Without doing that, you 
("you" being the person answering the question) can't even be sure you 
have a good answer. You'd have to trust the questioner to have actually 
provided all necessary information and really understand the problem 
they're trying to solve (often not the case -but one can always make 
that assumption :-)

So, IMO you gave enough info to form an answer, but not necessarily a 
good one.

For example, restarting the computer was a suggestion. Its a perfectly 
simple solution, but the person responding has no basis for really 
knowing if its a good answer -restarting could moot the point of 
clearing the clipboard.

So I find its actually a good thing that people are willing to start 
off by asking questions and making assumptions, especially on lists 
like this. I've seen very few problems solved without asking questions 
and making assumptions, and that includes engineering problems. Watch 
out for the Engineer who doesn't understand the assumptions made to 
derive that equation being used.

-Mike