The main reason the argument doesn't stand up is that some people use screen readers.

Unless you know the person/people you're sending something to can read screenshots, it's only right to at least accompany them with the text.

There's nothing obtuse about it.

You're creating a strawman. Nobody is aruging that you send only a screenshot, devoid of context or explanation or any other text. That's absurd.

The point is, if you need to illustrate code or output then that part gets sent as a screenshot, to preserve readability. It provides extra details and context.

If you want the code or data in text format to dig in, then go get it from the files yourself, because you probably need a broader swath anyways. My message isn't a data repository. I'm including the screenshot so you can understand the issue easily, without having to open anything else.

I'm genuinely mystified by this entire conversation. I'm baffled by this idea of needing to take some example I'm sending in a screenshot and... copy and paste it into a text editor to edit it? Huh? What the heck?

Let me give you some examples that I saw in my professional life and make me angry enough that I am genuinely miffed you can't see this.

Here, check out this hash. Snip! Screenshot! Here, try this code snippet. Screenshot! Here, go to this absurdly long URI. Screenshot! Try configuring your XML this way. Screenshot! (Bonus point for underspecified location)

You're right, those sound idiotic. If someone sent me a hash I needed to look up in a screenshot, if they had access to the selectable text, or code to run, they need to have their head looked at.

But that's not what the blog post was about. It specifically showed a section of code that was having an issue. It's not meant to be copied and pasted, like all of your examples. It's meant to be an easily readable snippet that preserves formatting.

The only problem with the example in the blog post is that the sender didn't also say which file and line number the issue was in. But the screenshot itself is often very helpful, because many times the question can be answered without having to load up anything else.

I'm really assuming that people aren't sharing URL's by screenshot. I've been working in this field a long time and haven't encountered someone dumb enough to do that yet, knock on wood...