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Has someone good suggestions for the following situation I had.

I was working as a programmer. I signed an NDA before I started a job. But then I met a situation where I needed to find out a method to do one task related to statistics. But I was unable to find a direct method to do that so I was stuck in my job.

How to solve the situation? I know only one unethical way to solve the issue: Researchers in universities has also NDA so I can sen them email from my leisure time.

I asked the permission to ask some people help with the issue but the answer was that I can't do it because we don't pay salary to other people.

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  • 2
    Are you not able to write your own method to do this action? Aug 1, 2019 at 6:56
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    And what has your supervisor recommended as a course of action? Aug 1, 2019 at 7:00
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    "Researchers in universities has also NDA so I can send them email" - what does their NDA have to do with your NDA? Is there another person in your company who might be knowledgeable about this topic? Aug 1, 2019 at 17:00
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    Are you struggling with the mathematics/business logic behind something or just need general help on the generic software development question?
    – AlexanderM
    Aug 1, 2019 at 17:50
  • Almost every dev is under some sort of NDA, if we weren't allowed to use google, StackOverflow, etc., to help solve our problems or get help with implementing custom algorithms/methods/etc., development would rather quickly grind to a halt, everywhere :) Find an appropriate forum like StackOverflow, and isolate your problem. Describe what you're trying to do, what are expected results from a given set of dummy/mock input(s), what you have tried so far, and how those efforts have failed to return the desired results.
    – David Z
    Aug 1, 2019 at 21:00

1 Answer 1

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What many people do is create a sandbox application that isn't affected by the terms of the NDA that uses the same methods and get that to work. This way, it's possible to ask for outside help because there's no data or information being shared as part of that work.

When you get your generic code working, you can place that into your project with a fair chance of it succeeding.

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    Note that it may still be wise to ask anonymously if you can. It may reflect poorly on the business if it's employees are asking embarrassing questions, for example. Aug 1, 2019 at 7:00
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    even without NDA, this is the expected behaviour in StackOverflow, or with other means. It's much easyer to find a solution when the problem is isolated.
    – Kepotx
    Aug 1, 2019 at 8:08
  • @GregoryCurrie Whether one should embrace or try to hide one's questions is a topic one can certainly debate. Aug 1, 2019 at 17:01

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