{"id":43583,"date":"2014-11-19T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2014\/11\/19\/distinguishing-between-normative-and-positive-statements-to-help-people-answer-your-question\/"},"modified":"2014-11-19T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T07:00:00","slug":"distinguishing-between-normative-and-positive-statements-to-help-people-answer-your-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20141119-00\/?p=43583","title":{"rendered":"Distinguishing between normative and positive statements to help people answer your question"},"content":{"rendered":"

Often, we get questions from a customer that use the word should<\/i> in an ambiguous way:<\/p>\n

Our program creates a widget whose flux capacitor<\/a> should have reverse polarity. Attached is a sample program that shows how we create the widget with Create­Widget<\/code>. However, the resulting widget still has a flux capacitor with standard polarity. Can you help us? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The phrase should have reverse polarity<\/i> is ambiguous. The question could be<\/p>\n

We would like to create a widget whose flux capacitor has reverse polarity. Attached is a sample program that shows how to create a widget whose flux capacitor has standard polarity. How should we modify it in order to get reverse polarity? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or the question might be<\/p>\n

We would like to create a widget whose flux capacitor has reverse polarity. Attached is a sample program that attempts to do so, but the resulting widget has a flux capacitor with standard polarity. The polarity flag appears to be ignored. Are are we doing something wrong, or is this a bug in Windows? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first is a normative statement: “This is what we would like to happen.” The second is a positive statement: “This is what is happening.”\n The distinction is important because the two types of statements require very different types of responses. If have a program that does X, and you want to change it to do Y, then you’re asking for help working through the Y feature, clarifying the documentation, informing you which flags you need to pass, and so on. But if you have a program that tries to do Y and fails, then you’re asking for help debugging your code and possibly identifying a bug in the operating system.\n Being clear with your request means that you can avoid wasting a lot of time when the wrong set of people are called in to help you out.\n Here’s another example of vague use of the word should<\/i>:<\/p>\n

We’re trying to do XYZ. We’ve been told that it is blocked for security reasons, but there should be a way to do this. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this case, it is not clear what the customer means by the phrase should be a way to do this<\/i>. It could be<\/p>\n

We’re trying to do XYZ. We’ve been told that it is blocked for security reasons, but we think that Windows should be changed to allow our scenario. How can we file a change request with the Windows security team to make an exception for us? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or the customer might be trying to say<\/p>\n

We’re trying to do XYZ. We’ve been told that it is blocked for security reasons, but we think that there is a way to get the effect of XYZ without triggering the security issue. Can you help us find it? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note that in both cases, the customer either failed to asked a question<\/a> or made some statements and asked for nonspecific advice<\/a>, which is effectly the same as not asking a question. If they had remembered to ask a question, then that question would have clarified what they intended by the word should<\/i>.\n Bonus chatter<\/b>: A physicist classmate of mine got a chuckle out of the phrase flux capacitor<\/i> because it combines two physics terms in an impressive-sounding but mostly nonsensical way.\n A capacitor<\/i> is a device which stores electric potential. In the hydraulic analogy of electricity<\/a>, a capacitor is a rubber diaphragm that separates two parts of a pipe, but which “stores” water flow by stretching and “discharges” the water flow by returning to its rest position.\n Flux<\/i> is cross-sectional flow per unit time. Water flux is volumetric flow rate (liters per second per square meter): it measures how vigorously the water flows across a boundary. Magnetic flux measures the strength of a magnetic field.\n The combination is nonsensical because the units don’t match. A capacitor stores potential, whereas flux is measured in current or magnetic field strength. But if you generalize the term capacitor<\/i> to mean “a thing that stores stuff”, then a flux capacitor<\/i> is a device which stores a magnetic field.<\/p>\n

Such devices already exist today. They are called magnets<\/i>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Often, we get questions from a customer that use the word should in an ambiguous way: Our program creates a widget whose flux capacitor should have reverse polarity. Attached is a sample program that shows how we create the widget with Create­Widget. However, the resulting widget still has a flux capacitor with standard polarity. Can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[103],"class_list":["post-43583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-non-computer"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Often, we get questions from a customer that use the word should in an ambiguous way: Our program creates a widget whose flux capacitor should have reverse polarity. Attached is a sample program that shows how we create the widget with Create­Widget. However, the resulting widget still has a flux capacitor with standard polarity. Can […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}