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Schreiber's EE Arguing On the Internet Flowchart

This amusing, yet oft-seen, flow of conversation on forums was posted by Paul Schreiber some years ago. I took the liberty of archiving it here for posterity.

  1. Someone without engineering degree/25+ years of experience asks a perfectly reasonable quesion, but requires engineering knowledge to understand the 'proper' answer.

  2. Engineer gives a simplified answer, which is 'correct' but counters the premise of the asked question.

  3. Twelve people watching the thread immediately respond "but I do the bad thing, and the bad thing WORKS GREAT FOR ME!"

  4. Engineer calmly explains the bad thing is relatively bad, there are MUCH BETTER things out there and really, please use the better thing.

  5. OP is confused: why are there 'better things' when the 'bad thing' is working? Is the 'bad thing' bad? What does 'bad' mean?

  6. Engineer tries one more time to explain why the 'better thing' really is better.

  7. Eighteen MORE people chide the engineer, saying you are just paranoid/uptight/wrong/arrogant/whatever, "Hey, OP! Just use the 'bad thing' because IT WORKS FOR ME!"

  8. GOTO 6

(Note: I added the last step to ensure the madness never ends...)


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