Syllabus Lesson 34 of 141 · Ask a different question
Ask a different question

Reframing: ask a different question

Why it matters An AI assistant answers the question you typed. If the question makes the problem hard, the answer will be hard too, however well it is written. Changing the question is the one move the assistant almost never makes for you.

Reframing means restating a problem until the hard part shrinks or disappears, while the answer the business needs stays exactly the same. You are not dodging the problem. You are finding a version of it that is cheap to answer.

Three reframes you will use in this module

Invert it: answer the opposite question. "Who never paid?" is expensive to ask per customer; "who did pay?" takes one pass, and the first answer is everyone else.

Change the unit: count something else. Instead of every minute a machine runs, count the two moments it starts and stops. The answer is the same; the work drops from millions of minutes to a few thousand events.

Move the work: change who does it, or when. If a balance is read fifty times for every change, add it up when it changes, not when it is read.

A fourth move sits under all three: ask what is actually needed. A spec that says "sort everything" may have one caller that shows ten rows. The real question is "which ten?".

How to look for a reframe

  • Say the question out loud, then say its opposite. Is the opposite cheaper?
  • List what the code counts or stores. Is there a smaller thing that gives the same answer?
  • Find the most frequent operation. Can work move away from it?
  • Read the caller. What does it use from the result?

And check the plain framing too. Sometimes the straightforward question is already the cheap one, and a reframe only adds code. You will meet one of those at the end of the module.

Recap Invert it, change the unit, move the work, ask what is needed. Try each before you write code, and keep the plain framing if none of them helps.

Spotted a problem in this lesson? Report it · Ask about this lesson

This exercise opens soon

Finish the lesson before it and this one unlocks. The whole course is free, no account needed, and you can read this lesson right now.

Start at lesson 1 Back to syllabus