Explaining through Skillful Means

In Buddhist philosophy, there is a concept whose Sanskrit name is upaya. This is often translated as "skillful means", though, as with many other ancient philosophical terms, it is hard to translate exactly and has many interpretations.

To illustrate one useful interpretation, I'll start by explaining a little bit about Buddhism. If you boil Buddhism down to a one-sentence summary, it is about reducing your suffering (and that of the world) by living a moderate life and practicing meditation.

As simple as this sounds, there is a lot of theory behind it, covering — for example — what it means to live a moderate life, why that helps reduce suffering, what good meditation is and how it works, and a host of other questions.

The theory and practice of Buddhism is in fact so complex that it is usually taken for granted that it takes years of study and practice to really understand it. To make matters worse, there are many different opinions about what kind of study and practice, and how much.

But most of the concepts can be understood at first in a simplified way, and since all students of any complex skill have to start somewhere, people often start with these simplified forms that aren’t quite right to a more advanced student.

For example, there is an uncomplicated form of Buddhism called Pure Land, that more or less believes that if you faithfully chant a particular mantra, you will be reborn in a special paradise. You can still see in this belief some of the elements in my one-sentence summary above: chanting a mantra is a form of meditation, being reborn in a paradise is a reduction of suffering, and faithfully practicing a good habit is a rudimentary form of living a disciplined life.

So even though a “more advanced” student of Buddhism might roll their eyes at the simplicity of this approach, they would have to admit that practicing it was still an advancement in the direction of the aims of Buddhism, and therefore better than no understanding of Buddhist principles.

This, in a nutshell, is what upaya means: it is OK to let someone have a “wrong” idea about something you are explaining to them, so long as it takes them one step closer to understanding.

What does this have to do with software development?

Software development, boiled down, is about solving practical problems by producing reliable applications with maintainable code bases. (All of these things, incidentally, also reduce suffering. ;-) )

There is a complex skill set and complex methodologies that must be learned to accomplish this task. It is taken for granted (at least by some people) that mastering them takes years of study and practice, but there are many different opinions about what kind of study and practice, and how much.

But many concepts have a simplified version, and since all learners have to start somewhere, you often see versions of good practices that a more advanced practitioner would see as not quite right.

For example, a developer with less experience — or perhaps just different experience — might chant a mantra such as “always document”, “never document”, “always design before you program”, “never design before your program”, or “paradigm/language/library/framework X is always better than Y”. These mantras might strike you as over-simplified or incorrect based on your experience (especially when you favour an opposite version of the chant. ;-) ).

You can still see that they share the core concern of solving the practical problem reliably and maintainably. Maybe it is OK to let them be “wrong” for now, so long as they are engaged with the ultimate concerns of software development and are using the mantra to get one step closer to understanding.

When mentoring developers as a team lead or when introducing new ideas, techniques and methodologies to your peers or to an on-line community, it can be hard to determine when to hold a hard line, to nitpick or to qualify and when not to. Often it is best to introduce a simplified form of the idea and let them run with it for a while, trusting that if they share the same goals they will come to a deeper understanding on their own and that they will ask for more input when they need it.

Sometimes the best policy is to let others be "wrong" for the time being.