The Art of Questioning
23 Jan 2019Why asking questions is needed for Software Developers
Questions will always be asked regardless of what their profiles may be. However, I will be discussing from the perspective of software developers. Programmers often face bugs to fix, ranging from syntax errors, compiling errors, and web development. Some problems are easy to fix with a little bit of research online, but other problems may even seem impossible to deal with. When facing difficulties, we often resort to asking questions to platforms such as web forums, emails, and Stack Overflow. It is most important on how we ask our questions to receive the most effective responses that would also help other software developers.
Bad Question Example
Most questions from Stack Overflow can be categorize into two types of questions, that is smart versus bad questions. When browsing through the forums, notice the correlation between the upvotes/downvotes and their question being asked. Here is an example of a bad question regarding why their block of code does not work:
When reading a question that asks, “why my code doesn’t work”, it has a small implication of asking the reader to read a bunch of code and fix their problem. This often frustrates the reader that will result to poor responses or none at all. The goal of their question was not specified, along with no further details about what the programmer had tried such as displaying output. Another reason why it is a bad question is their presentation. Capitalization, spelling, and punctuations were improperly done. Hence, showing careless and sloppy features of would not be any additional help to solving your problem.
Smart Question Example
After viewing an example of a bad question, a smart question should contain a descriptive goal, clear grammatical and spell-checked format, and details of any indication or evidence relating to the problem. Here is an example of a smart question:
The title of the question is well-descriptive and clear about the goal of their problem. The writer explained what they have experimented along with a small snippet of their code. This can help the reader understand how to find their answer. Everything that was written has been neatly formatted in terms of capitalization, spelling, and punctuation.
Insight about Questioning
Eventually both questions have been answered, however, the smart question received quality and faster responses compared to the bad question. In addition, asking smart question could benefit the community who may also have the same problem and could help build on their professional persona. From this experience, I was able to distinguish those with smart and bad questions which encourages me to ask a smart question. Another insight that I noticed is that the smart questions has placed more effort and research into what they were asking. Simply asking a well-organized smart question could benefit yourself but, furthermore, the community.