Why Your Questions Might Be Dumb
27 Jan 2022Just as the saying goes, there are no dumb questions. However, there are dumb ways of asking questions
Smart Answers Respond to Smart Questions
Most of us ask questions with the expectation of receiving a “good” answer. In order to have that expectation, you might want to make sure your question is just as “good.” During our weekly pWODs, WODs, and bWODs, there are quite a few questions that get asked in our breakout rooms. They are usually along the lines of “What is even going on in this WOD?” or “How do you even know that?” In the end, these questions are answered with “I don’t know either” or “I found it online.” After reading the article by Raymond, those questions won’t receive good answers because they’re not good questions. Everyone has worthwhile questions and they should be asked, but we just have to ask them in a smarter way.
Example of a Smart Question
Smart Question from Stackoverflow
Even though I don’t understand exactly what the developer is asking, I know it is a smart question because of how it was asked. First, they used a question for their header: How to have the foreach loop wait for $http.get to complete before moving on? With no other context, we are able to understand what the developer needs help with and become more curious about what they’ve already tried. Their question is improved with the code they provided for context. They posted a relevant part of their code and the output they are getting. To clarify the problem even further, the developer provided the expected output of the code and even commented on lines that they think may be the problem.
From other developers’ responses, we can conclude this was a smart question. The top answer described what should be done and gave a sample code of how it could be done. This answer is a great answer because it is not a solution. I think other developers could tell that the original developer is more experienced and therefore should not be given a clear solution. With that kind of answer, the original developer can try it on their own and further assess their misunderstandings, rather than copy+pasting code. In addition, other developers provided ways the original code could be improved even further.
Learn From the Mistakes of Others
If you’re anything like me, you learn equally as well from what not to do. This is an example of a bad question asked on Stackoverflow and things you shouldn’t do.
Bad Question from Stackoverflow
In this example, there is the least bit of explanation of why the developer’s program does not work. Context is very important when asking a question because, without it, your question will get flagged as a duplicate. When this happens, it shows that the developer didn’t do their own research or attempt to solve their problem before asking for help. In fact, there are no details about what the original developer may have done beforehand. We can further conclude that this is a bad question because other developers are replying with questions to clarify the original poster’s problem. The first comment is “What’s your question?” That’s usually not a good thing when that’s the answer to a question. These developers were very nice because most people wouldn’t bother asking for clarification on a problem that isn’t theirs. You can assume this behavior from most people, which further emphasizes why it’s important to ask smart questions!
Are you up to date?
As a software engineer, the world of technology and programming is ever-changing. Therefore, it is impossible to know the most updated answer to every programming question and that’s okay. The best thing you can do to stay up to date, other than doing your own research, is by asking questions and expecting to solve a lot of your problems on your own. That’s real-life: solving your own problems. So stay up to date and ask those smart questions!