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badtension | 2 years ago

Tangentially I want to mention that rinsing dishes before running the dishwasher is a known anti-pattern. The first washing cycle is exactly that - a rinsing cycle. I know this is off-topic but saving water is always a good idea.

In my experience visual tools like RoseRT can quickly turn into an obstacle. I think it's super important to not only know what the non-code solutions may be good at but also keep the solution limited or at least be prepared to go back to code if the problem domain is complex enough.

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vector_spaces|2 years ago

I'm always rubbed the wrong way by folks showing up with a "well, actually" over this point about dishwashers because this advice only holds in general if you're using a recent model, which not everyone can afford -- in fact, probably most people can't, so it becomes a question of accessibility. True, it would reduce your costs over the long run to use something more efficient -- but one of the insidious realities of being poor is that you can't afford to think long-term. If it's between paying my rent this month, and maybe saving an extra $15/month over the long term, sorry, but I'm going to make sure there's a roof over my head.

So if you're like me and have always lived in rentals with older model dishwashers for much of your life, and find yourself going crazy reading advice like this all over the internet despite making sure the filter trap is clean and taking full advantage of dishwasher pre-rinse cycles and even adjusting the temperature on your water heater and experimenting with different detergents, don't feel too bad -- dishwashers become less efficient over time for the most part, and hand-rinsing beforehand becomes a necessity. So go ahead and hand-rinse beforehand if you need to. It's not an anti-pattern unless you have a newer model.

dragonwriter|2 years ago

Even with a fairly recent model I’ve occasionally had food debris from un-pre-rinsed dishes redeposited (and firmly so, with a heated dry cycle) on other dishes.

badtension|2 years ago

I've been washing dishes by hand my whole life and just recently got a dishwasher. When washing by hand pre-rinsing and soaking is essential so I kept doing that even after getting the machine, only recently discovering that I am wasting water this way.

Thanks for the tip about the old dishwashers.

michaelteter|2 years ago

> Tangentially I want to mention that rinsing dishes before running the dishwasher is a known anti-pattern. The first washing cycle is exactly that - a rinsing cycle.

I haven't been fortunate enough to use a dishwasher that can reliably remove all particles from a dish. And I hate getting a "clean" dish out which still has some small bits of food stuck - now especially well stuck having gone through the heat drying cycle.

Some dishes need a human rinse/scrub before going into the dishwasher. The dishwasher is really more of a bacteria reducer.

replwoacause|2 years ago

Not according to the condescending maintenance guy who was replacing my broken dishwasher at the apartment I lived at years ago. You should have been there for THAT lecture.