No "Maybe" Please

在郑子颖的Blog上看到一篇日记：No "Maybe" Please。
很有感触，一个人是不是喜欢用Maybe可以反映出他的人生态度。
我以后了也不要再讲"Maybe"了。

No "Maybe" Please

中国人是如此的偏爱用"maybe"这个词。老美的tech talk，下边提问题的，没说两句就有好几个"maybe"。

很多时候，当我问“（某某模块的工作机制）是这样的么？”，我希望听到要么是"yes"，要么是"no"，要么是"部分正确"。千万不要回答我"maybe"。对于非此即彼、非黑即白的问题，对的就是对的，错的就是错的，conditional的就根据condition分别讨论。"maybe"算什么答案？

当然，对于“你爱她么”这种问题，可以回答"maybe"――这说明回答的人自己还没想清楚。那就请去想清楚再回来。

还有一些摘自email的"maybe"，似乎只是为了让自己委婉一些：

"I think maybe it is not a good idea to blahblah"
"Thing will get even worse if blah blah, ..., maybe we need think about it seriously"
"To track those bugs easily, maybe we'd better provide the corresponding build version when we file bugs"
"A configuration spec should be defined. Maybe PM can push it."
"(We have a lot to do, so) maybe we have time only to browse the code."
"One solusion maybe: ..."

为什么不能说的更确切一些、更肯定、更明确一些呢？例如：

"I think it is not a good idea to blahblah"
"Thing will get even worse if blah blah, ..., we need think about it seriously"
"To track those bugs easily, we'd provide the corresponding build version when we file bugs"
"A configuration spec should be defined. PM could push it."
"(We have a lot to do, so) we hardly have time to browse the code."
"One solusion: ..."

我真的很讨厌太多的"maybe".