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Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

hef19898

I don't need to read C++ docs, I am not concerned with it. If C++ is part of your, what's it called, stack, read the part of it that matters for your use case and read those parts directly related to your part of C++ or whatever other language you are using. Do that for every other language in your stack. I never said anything else, did I?

How deep and broad your understanding has to be depends on:

- your team, nobody can know everything alone, it is a team sport

- your specific use case, I cannot help you with that

- complexity of your use case

- your role, if you are responsible for graphics under Linux, sure as hell you read that part of the Linux documentation, front to end, multiple times and master it

- and, as always, know your system, stack, tools and documentation well enough to realize when you have to look stuff up and where

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>your specific use case, I cannot help you with that

I don't need your help. You need it. I'm helping you realize your statement is wrong.

First you make a statement saying one should read all the docs. Now you say devs should read the relevant docs. Devs do the later anyway. Your argument just evolved into the point you're arguing against.

Clearly you didn't mean to do that. You just meant to read more docs then you normally would on topics a little further from the relevancy at hand. But people are responding to you based not off what you meant but what you said.

All the docs, if taking literally, would mean all the docs for everything you interact with in your life. Obviously impossible, isn't it?

Not every statement has to be taken literally, it seems so that on HN, more often than not, one has to be incredibly specific in ones comments. That is like talking to genie or something, really frustrating. I kind of assumed, and without going through all my comments I think I also mentioned it, that by "all the docs" the meaning was all the relevant docs, I even specified that explicitly later on, didn't I?

So, ehy exactly do you think that reading jib and task relevant documentation is not necessary, or even the comoletely wrong approach? Seriously curious, because I run into such people ever so often at work and usually fail to explain to them why they actually have to read that stuff if they want to be a usefull member of the team. Understanding why they have that opinion would really be helpful.

>All the docs, if taking literally, would mean all the docs for everything you interact with in your life. Obviously impossible, isn't it?

No but even if C++ is the central language of my stack your comment can reasonably be interpreted as suggesting me to read the entire C++ spec. That's not an outlandish interpretation given how many people interpreted what you said this way.

>So, ehy exactly do you think that reading jib and task relevant documentation is not necessary, or even the comoletely wrong approach?

Did I say this? No.

Man, you just did. If your job is C++ development, yes, I absolutely expect you to be familiar with the full C++ documentation and master the parts relevant for your specific usage of it. If C++ is only part of your stack, replace familiarity with C++ specifically with familiarity of your whole stack.

I do the same with everyone, actually, myself included. Plumbers have to know the specs of their tools, materials and the regulations as well as principles of installation. And they do, the good ones at least.

And the easiest way to get that familiarity is reading the damn documenents. If you cannot be bothered with that, well, let me say I am happy I don't have to work with you.

>Man, you just did.

I just did what. Be clear with Your sentences.

>If your job is C++ development, yes, I absolutely expect you to be familiar with the full C++ documentation and master the parts relevant for your specific usage of it.

So you were unclear. You want someone to master only parts of of the stack but read the full spec. This is completely inconsistent with what you said earlier. You are moving the goal posts. Still it doesn't Make sense to read 1800 pages of the C++20 spec.

Do you read the English dictionary because you use English?

>And the easiest way to get that familiarity is reading the damn documenents. If you cannot be bothered with that, well, let me say I am happy I don't have to work with you.

Then you would be happy to not have to work with the overwhelming majority of programmers on the face of the earth. You being in the minority would make you the problem. Not others. Programmers in general read the spec and docs relevant to the task at hand. They do not generally read the full formal specifications and documentation of what they need.

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