Comment by devilbunny
17 hours ago
Good luck convincing anyone outside of HN types. I get regular requests from my wifeto assist with some task and my answer is “you can’t really do that on a phone or tablet, you need to use a real computer”. They are still not done.
It sounds like she’s asking you for help and you’re suggesting using a different tool rather than helping. If you keep repeating that it means she either doesn’t want to or has trouble doing it. Just take care of the tasks dude lol
Okay, clean a 16000 email backlog on a phone.
On her phone.
Without her computer logged into her email.
Without her phone.
"I can do this for you, but I will need to use your computer to do it, and I will need you to read me off a bunch of 2FA codes in all likelihood, so you can either give me your phone or you can sit next to me while I do it. Oh, and they're your emails, so you may as well pull up a chair or I'm just going to have to guess whether you care or not."
My time is valuable too. You want me to do it, you help.
Can confirm this is an absolutely terrible thing to do on the phone unless you use the web UI and know how to create filters/rules
How is he able to help more other than telling the truth that phones and tablets can't do what she needs?
Especially in this department, where limitations are very much fixed. Even if he wants it to work on a phone, he cannot make it do certain things if the OS doesn’t intend it to be possible. If she were trying to do things on Linux, at least you could accuse him of being too lazy to write custom software to do it. Not true on closed platforms though.
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Sometimes, "use a different tool" is in fact the correct and most helpful answer. If someone comes to me asking why they are having such a hard time pounding in nails, and I see they are using the handle of their screwdriver, I'm not going to give them tips on how to hold the screwdriver better, I'm going to say "dude use a hammer, you'll be much better off".