Tom Austin wrote:
> Tom Galvin wrote:
>> Invisible wrote:
>>> Just how *do* you tell somebody that there ideas are completely 
>>> stupid in a tactful way?
>>>
>>
>> Try to understand where they are coming from.  Empathy is underrated.
> 
> 
> Yeah, what he said.

Exactly.

Think of it in terms of "how would I teach/explain a complicated thing 
to a naive user, or a child" kind of thing. Try to figure out why they 
think it'll do what they want, then find the flaws in it. In other 
words, try to work backwards from what they wrote to what they expect it 
to accomplish, then explain the ways in which it could fail.

Doing this can be extremely difficult if you're very well versed in the 
field.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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