Smart Questions Only Please
07 Sep 2022
Smart Questions in Engineering
Smart questions are important for smart software engineers because it is a more efficient way to solve complex problems and comprehend new concepts. If there is an issue, asking stupid questions will take longer to get to a solution. It is faster to sit and think what you are really asking for then formatting the question in a way that the person answering does not need to ask for more clarification. It is also important that you make sure that your question has not already been answered on Google or a forum website. It is important to do your own research before asking for help. You will just look lazy if you ask a question that has an answer that is easily accessible online. Asking a smart question also requires every detail of the issue and what you are actually trying to accomplish. You are never going to get the solution that you are looking for just by saying, “My program isn’t compiling. Help!”. See below for an example of a smart question and a not-so-smart one.
The Smart Way
This Stack Overflow question is titled, “How to call function on child component on parent events”. Within the description of the issue, the user provides context, question, and an example of the issue. I believe this fulfills the precepts for smart questions. The context provides the person answering the question a sense of what environment the user is working with. The question gives the person answering the question a clear understanding of what is the user trying to accomplish. The example given furthers that understanding by showing a detailed description of what is going on. Based on the responses to this question, the question was successfully relayed due to the structure.
Is this even real?
This user titled their question, “Why are compilers so stupid?”. That in itself is a stupid question in general. The user then goes on in the description questioning the integrity of compilers and how they cannot figure out simple things that humans can. There is no clear issue to solve here. It sounds like the user is complaining that their code is not working and is blaming the compiler. This shows through the responses such as, “In my opinion, I don’t believe it’s the job of the compiler to fix what is, honestly, bad coding.” Scrolling through the responses, everyone made the same conclusion that the user’s code was not written sufficiently. This question overall did not help anyone solve anything because it was not a smart question.
Insights
the insights you gained as a result of this experience I use Stack Overflow often to solve issues or to get hints to help me solve homework issues. However, I never actually asked a question because most of my questions were already answered in a previous forum. I am glad that I had the chance to learn how to ask smarter questions to avoid the loser status on Stack Overflow. Seeing the difference in responses for both questions were really useful. A couple things I took away from this experience:
1) Do your own research first 2) Be specific and make sure your end goal is clear 3) Never call a compiler stupid