Hacker News Reader

Comment by helipad | Hacker News Reader

From experience, a checklist should be exactly that: a way of checking this off a list once complete. "Did I do this?" - "Yes". Check.

But for me a checklist should never be a step-by-step guide. "Do this, then do this." People are reluctant to be told how to do things that can easily take more than one path.

View on HN

I handle that by doing stuff like:

    [ ] Copy foo data file to foo server
        [ ] "scp foo.dat server:/path/to/foo.dat"
    [ ] Copy bar data file to bar server
        [ ] "scp bar.dat server:/path/to/bat.dat"

It's a reminder of one way to do it, but it's not necessarily the only way of doing it.

I am plagued by the exact opposite of this. I hate providing step-by-step checklist/step-by-step guides that can follow multiple paths, yet am surrounded by people who are constantly asking for them so they can avoid needing to learn about how things actually work

Reply on news.ycombinator.com