Yeah, but the very nature of computer science tends to mean it's a turtles on down scenario. You explain that (for example), no, you can't upgrade the machine to windows 7 from XP, and that's why your question is about XP, then you end up having to explain why you can't upgrade, which isn't just a simple reason. You go "well, because the framework we use only exists for XP" and now you're stuck explaining why you use that framework. Once you explain why you're using the framework, you're off to explain why you can only use that one framework and why nothing else will do. Then, you're explaining the problem that lead you to that framework, and on and on and on. It's typically never a simple "Well, we just chose X and that's why," it's almost always "We have to use x, because Y used N and M which don't work with L because J and we tried A, B, C, D and E, but only R worked, but R doesn't exist for the OS we use so we had to rewrite R in F and finally use it with X."

You kinda end up copy pasting your life's story every time you ask a simple question. Drives me nuts and makes me use IRC more often because the feedback loop ends quicker.

"What are you trying to do?" is probably the most passive-aggressive, most infuriating and least helpful answer to any technical question.

It usually translates to "I know the answer to your question, but instead of just answering it and letting us both get on with our lives, I'd like to show off my vast intellect by helping you embark on a major re-design that you neither asked for nor need at the moment."

I ask questions like this a lot, and that is not at all what it's about. The motivation for asking what somebody is trying to do is that I don't know a good answer to the question they asked, but I have a nagging feeling that their question might actually be reducible to a different question that I can answer easily. It would be presumptuous to just answer a completely different question, though, so I ask for clarification whether this is in fact the context that it looks like. To put it another way, they're asking "How do I hit glass with stone without breaking it?" but what they actually want to know is "How do I get the lid off a beer bottle?" The fact that they currently believe removing a beer lid involves striking the bottle with a rock doesn't necessarily mean that answers along those lines are the most helpful. But I can't be sure when I see that question whether they are thinking about a beer bottle.

For example, yesterday a guy asked a rather complicated question about hacking the Objective-C runtime to replace a class in the inheritance tree. But from his question, I was able to infer that what he actually wanted to do was globally change a class's behavior. So I answered the question that I read between the lines. His response was, "Oh, yeah, I don't know why I didn't do that to begin with." In that case I felt sure enough to answer without asking, but in other cases I'm not as confident whether this is actually a different question in disguise.

Sometimes there really is a better way to solve their problem. Sometimes, the problem they have can be guessed reasonably accurately, and solving it for them is useful. I've found such answers helpful in the past.

I've replied to "does anyone know where the nearest ATM is?" with "the pub we're going to has no card transaction fees or minimum spend". It doesn't necessarily solve their problem, but there's enough chance that it does, that I feel it's a useful thing to say.

I wouldn't assume it means they know the answer. On the lists I'm on, it usually means "I have no idea how to answer this question directly, but if you give me more context maybe I could answer a broader question that gets you what you want."

> I couldn't agree more. I've gone on and on endless rants on how people in the computer science/software engineering field (including but not limited to SO users) usually avoid "unusual" questions by asking what is it exactly you're trying to do, instead of being objective and answering.

I can't say that this is generally always the case, but when people ask "what is it exactly you're trying to do?", it's often because they're trying to figure out if you have an XY Problem[0].

[0]: http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/66378/163250