The 'XY Problem' and How Stack Overflow Helps You Avoid It

The XY problem is when you try to solve problem X, you think solution Y is the answer, and then you ask for help with Y, completely missing the fact that X was the real issue. I’ve been guilty of this countless times. I’ll ask 'How do I parse this string with regex?' when the real question should be 'How do I extract data from this malformed JSON?' The great thing about Stack Overflow is that often, someone will recognize the XY problem and ask 'What are you actually trying to do?' That one question has saved me hours of going down the wrong rabbit hole. It forces you to step back and articulate the real problem, which is often half the solution.