Importance of Effective Smart Questions
Every programmer has those moments where they are stuck on something and seek some guidance for their problem. Some succeed on finding what their query is online by google or some web browser forums. Others unfortunately may not be so lucky and are unable to find a solution to their problem. Therefore, some resort to posting a question about their problem and await for an answer to bring them salvation. However, is their topic post formatted in a “smart” way to get effective help? It is important to because it will most likely lead to a path that will have a solution to your problem as an end result. If everyone could do that, forum response would be more effective to posted questions.
What is a smart question?
A smart question is asking a question in a way that is decisive and gets straight to the point while at the same time, giving a very detailed problem or error they are encountering. In addition, have shown that they put effort into their work and not expect to be entitled to a response and sound rude or being inferior when asking the question. Everyone runs into bumps on the road and seeks help so don’t sell yourself short and remember to be polite. If done right, your replies will be really helpful to your query.
Why do it like this?
Asking questions should be a type of question that is not wasting everyone’s time looking at that if it is something so simple that you can google that or it is very vague and cannot help because not enough information is given. In terms of time effectiveness, a minute spent on reading some dumb question is better spent elsewhere like continuing your own work or just stand up and quick stretch. For example, there is a post with the topic that is a duplicate recently What is the difference between a normal compiler error and a fatal compiler error? where to me it feels like instead of asking they should have just researched it themselves because by now there should be answers to this type of question already. I feel this is not a smart question because they did not take the steps to research before asking a question and the question is so simple that the person should have just googled it would have found it. The responses to the question were effective however. It was a decisive response that got straight to the point and no one was rude about it. Despite being how simple of a question it was, it was getting straight to the point that people knew what the person was asking. Someone did acknowledge however that the post was indeed a duplicate and linked the one that was asked a couple years ago. This does show that the person that asked did not take the effort to look around for an answer first. In addition, this person did not reply with a thank you for the people who took the time to answer.
What a smart question should be like
As mentioned, a smart question should have certain aspects that makes it worth the time for someone to look at. For example, the topic How to improve an if/else function in a jQuery game? shows that the person has shown work to prove that they did put effort in their time and not just ask for the answer. It was short and a simple question to ask on how to make the code better. It is sort not so smart of a question because a reply made it sound like it should have been posted in a different forum topic. The responses were indeed effective as well despite that one reply. They gave guidance what could be done instead and it was in a very detailed manner. The person also added a thank you at the end of his post to thank those who replied.
Lesson Learned
I hope since I have seen examples of smart and non-smart questions and their responses, it will help me if a time I decide to ask or reply a question. I have never asked questions on forums and just searched in terms for coding so I am sure to fail a few times. If anything, I hope to retain that at all times one should be polite about it and be decisive while giving all the details possible regardless of answering or asking a question. Hopefully people realize as well that maybe their question is already asked so they should look first before asking.