Exemplifying Good Questions
24 Jan 2019Exemplifying Good Questions
Eric Raymonds How To Ask Questions The Smart Way spurred some thought in my mind as to the mass quantity of programming questions on the Internet and the sub set of good and bad questions. It is undeniable that the search engine is the most useful thing that’s ever happened to the software developer. Since the advent of the Internet we have been able to connect and share problems seamlessly. The Internet is designed to permanently archive every minute addition to its canals. This is a great thing for the skilled indexer, so as the vast trove of information that extends their current knowledge. But for the novice it is hard not to let this expanse of data become a dark hallway where all screams go unanswered.
Shop Around
Directory after directory, how do you know which forum is right for your query? The generic answer is Stack Overflow, but healthy alternatives include Codecall, Scoold, and OSQA which encourages good question asking with a badge feature, awarded for useful participation.
The Good
When it comes to asking a good question there are a few factors to take into account: what is the goal? is the question easy to understand? does the question have a descriptive heading/labeling for the reader to contrive? For example, “Having different versions of Python and Anaconda in the same machine”, this question is a good one, it clearly states the problem in the heading. In the body it defines what systems their using, their goals, and the issues (potential) that could plague their system if they choose to implement in a rudimentary way. It proposes an idea, and speculates on the effectiveness of the different options. At the end they define their little experience with the software, while reaching out to somebody with experience who can recommend a common solution. While they are new to Anaconda and VM’s, they are not new to asking good insightful questions.
The Bad
Bad questions are, well… just that, they’re bad. No context, non-descriptive, invokes a sense of ‘why didn’t they just Google this first?’. To further illustrate, take a look at a bad, bad, chilling example How do I redirect to another webpage?. This user gives an ambiguous title, and specifies no technical details until you read their (one-line) description which specifies jQuery OR Javascript, with emphasis on the or like they want you to do their code for them. Lastly this answer could be easily found by a quick Google search, this fact alone makes it bad.
The Ugly
Good questions fuel the programming community, bad and uninformed questions just create excess load and may get you laughed off a forum. I hope this helps exemplify positive habits when asking questions.