When you are answering questions here as well as in the real life what do you do if you feel there is a bigger issue/misunderstanding behind a simple(?) question asked?
Sometimes the straight answer is pretty obvious. Just give the person asking the fix they want and be done with it.
But what if the question shows that there is a bigger issue in play here? What if you know that even the right answer to the question will not solve the asker's real problem?
What do you do? Ignore the question? Answer it and move on? Or try to explain the bigger context and related issues?
So many people asking questions here are in just for a quick fix (and I fully appreciate this - some of them are under considerable pressure) so they ignore - or even downvote answers which are more complex than what they expect.
But isn't it better to teach them to fish rather than giving them the correct answers which you know will not solve their problems?
Edit
It looks like it is time to select the "correct answer". It seems that everybody is pretty much of the same opinion - it is necessary to do both. Not that this is something unexpected for me _ I have to admit that the question was as much a question as an expression of some frustration.
Frustration not because my feeling offended/rejected - not that, frustration because people just skip over important stuff not realizing that they set themselves up for more problems, problems which would've been easily averted if they just pay attention.
@Charles Stewart: What prompted the question? - It was multiple encounters more or less relevant to the topic. The one which stood out for me is this. F# is a beautiful language, but so many people out there think that it is C# with slightly different syntax. They have no idea how far from truth this is.
Anyway - going back to the answer - All of them are good ones, but according to the rules I can only select one and will go with the crowd.