Ask smart, be rewarded
07 Sep 2023
Asking questions is hard
One of the most difficult things in life is to ask a question. You’re taking a huge risk. Obviously, you don’t know the answer. You’re vulnerable: you don’t want to sound stupid because you’re asking a question about something you should’ve known. However, with maturity comes the realization that asking questions, while difficult, is essential. Michael Jordan did not come out of the womb dribbling a basketball. In the same sense, you aren’t expected to just know things. The things we all know today initally stemmed from a curiosity that eventually blossomed into a question followed by an answer. The people who master the art of asking smart questions bloom more elegant answers.
Smart questions in the context of coding
Asking smart questions is a skill that is especially important in programming, as programming problems can have many different solutions in many different situations. Oftentimes programmers take to the web to aid them when they run into issues. There they can find databases holding information on the language they are working with. They can also come across websites such as StackOverflow: a website that serves as a forum where programmers post questions to be answered by other programmers.
Here, if you want your question to be answered thoroughly, it is important to ask in a smart way. What’s the smart way? The smart way consists of being clear, concise and concentrated. Your title should be clear and specific. The reader should know exactly what you are asking. Your question should be concise and to the point. The longer your question, the harder it is for the reader to follow along and can mess with its clarity. Finally, your question should be concentrated. Don’t ask a question that asks another question, and another. Your question should elicit singular responses. These techniques makes your questions more effective.
What a smart question looks like
In general, according to the short guide listed above, it is better to ask short, specific questions, rather than broad, open-ended ones because you can receive answers that actually answer your question. I found a good example of a smart question on StackOverflow. The person asking the question titled their post: “Create button to update in django posts with javascript fetch.
The title is clear, specific and concise. A reader would instantly know whether they might be able to help here or not. Another good thing is that the body of the questions isn’t just a question. It includes the question of how to add a button, but also code providing what was already implemented and where the button code would fit in. This makes the question easy to follow along, and easier to answer. Lastly, the question is simple: it wasn’t too complicated and thus elicited a quick and accurate response. It might be better to ask many smaller questions than one long question since you may never get a useful answer to the long question.
A link to the smart question is found here: [(https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74403118/create-button-to-update-in-django-posts-with-javascript-fetch)].
What a not-so-smart question looks like
It is never wrong to ask a question. Even people who ask not-so-smart questions are taking a good risk and it is clear that they want to learn. However, if you want to learn effectively, it is essential to not ask questions that make it hard for people to answer you.
An example of one of these not-so-smart questions from StackOverflow reads as follows: “Refresh the screen every time you open it.” First of all, this title doesn’t even make sense. It is concise, but not clear at all. What are they asking? It sounds more like a command than a question.
As you dive deeper into the body of the actual question, it is a little bit easier to make out what they are asking. However, with the myriad grammatical errors it takes a little bit of time to realize that they are asking how to set your Flutter API to automatically refresh your screen every time you open it. The lack in clarity and readbility probably lost this user some potential answers. Also, the user puts what they attempted but only very briefly without actually showing what they did. It might help answerers to show what kind of code was implemented or tried in order for them to maybe point out where you went wrong.
A link to the not-so-smart question is found here: [(https://stackoverflow.com/questions/77065516/refresh-the-screen-every-time-you-open-it)]
Asking questions is hard, but also rewarding
Yes, it’s scary to put yourself out there. Every time you ask a question you are announcing to the world, “Hey I don’t know this!” You don’t want to seem incompetent. Maybe it’s best to change your mindset: “Hey I don’t know this yet but I’m willing to learn!” Asking questions is essential to learning, which is why it’s very important to ask questions that provoke good answers!