I mostly work on audio and video codec projects. You would not believe the number of people in this domain who come to us trying to do something insane that shouldn't be done in the first place. Of course, telling them that and dismissing them isn't helpful. But pretty much all you can do is ask, "Why are you trying to do that?" and work backwards. With luck you can set them back on the path towards success.

But a lot of people don't want to explain themselves or their reasoning, or get defensive when you imply that the time they just sunk into the approach they were taking was wasted.

It's helpful to remember that the people who have been working on a project for years might (but not always!) have a better perspective than someone who picked it up this week. If we're asking you "why", it's because we really are trying to help.

We're especially interested in figuring out how we can avoid leading other people down the path you went down (whether it's better documentation, or something else that would help). Because for every one who comes to us trying to do something insane, there's probably a hundred who are doing insane things and not telling us.