Does My Question Have an IQ?
08 Sep 2022
Dumb vs Smart
Growing up I always heard the phrase: “there is no such thing as a dumb question”. However, we are still always scared to ask questions in fear that it will not be taken seriously. It is true that there is no dumb question in terms of the essence of what you are asking. What matters is the manner in which you ask the question. Especially in the online programming world, you need to be able to ask questions that allow others to answer without having to pry for more information on your situation.
I personally have been guilty of asking dumb questions in the past. During my summer internship, I worked with professionals virtually. This means that when I wanted to ask a question, I had to be able to communicate effectively since I could not have them walk over to my computer. I would be told to remember that they are blind unless I provide them enough information. By the end of my internship I got better at describing my issue without using too many words, and providing the code in question.
We Love Answering Interesting Questions
Eric Raymond provides guidelines on “How to Ask Questions The Smart Way” and this is a valuable resource if you want answers. One aspect of asking a smart question is that it will intrigue an expert browsing the forum website you posted on. Those who have already mastered the topic you are asking about do not want to waste their time on boring questions. This means that you need to make your title meaningful in describing what is going on. Do not just say “Help!!”. In addition to this, you need to make sure to be precise and informative about your problem. If the description does not provide necessary information it then becomes boring. Experts also do not want to be the first resource to your problem. You should do sufficient research beforehand and indicate that you properly searched the internet, manual, or source code before posting. Another important tip to keep in mind is to ask your question where it makes sense. There are so many places on the internet that provide a space to ask questions. This means that you should find the place that is most appropriate for your topic. For example, Stack Exchange provides various sites specifically for subjects. Stack Overflow is a great place for questions on programming. On the other hand, if you need to ask about general-purpose computing then go to Super User.
Let us take a look at an example of a smart question. On Stack Overflow, GManNickG asked the question: “Why is processing a sorted array faster than processing an unsorted array?”. This poster has C++ code that creates an array with random integers. Then they have a for loop that adds all the integers. They notice that if it first sorts the data, the run time changes from 11.54 seconds to 1.93 seconds. GManNickG also showed how they tried this again but in Java to see if it would yield different results. However, the results were similar but less extreme. In the end of the post they provide questions that they want answered: “What is going on?” and “Why is processing a sorted array faster than processing an unsorted array?”. Here you can see that they provide sufficient information about their problem by showing the code they used. To take it another step further, they even provided the code in proper code format so it is easy to copy and paste if someone wanted to run it on their own. They also show what steps they have taken in figuring it out themselves. GManNickG recreated the issue in another language and described their results with that as well. They also made it easy to respond by providing questions they wanted answered at the end. The post received 27 answers and the top one described what happened in great detail. This poster provided a meaningful question and will therefore receive meaningful feedback.
We Hate Answering Plain Questions
When someone asks a question that obviously shows their laziness, no one wants to answer it. Lousy questions just waste everyone’s time. Although ignorance can be forgiven, laziness cannot. If you bring up a problem and do not follow the smart questions guidelines described above, you will receive little to no response. Even if you do get an answer, it will be just as lousy as your question. When you post a question, those in that community are doing you a favor in even answering. So, you must make it worthwhile for them.
A good example of a dumb question is also posted on Stack Overflow: “How to set up windows SDK on Windows XP” by Ash. This poster explained that they are trying to develop a windows desktop application with windows XP on their PC. However, they could not find steps on how to install it and they do not know if it can even be installed. Although they stated that they could not find the steps, they did not show what resources they attempted to use. This shows that Ash did not put in a lot of effort to come to a solution on their own. It also does not seem that they provided a lot of information on their set up. As expected, this question got only one answer. However, Ash did not really understand it and just asked to get the complete steps of installation. It seems that they could have done further research with the new information provided by the response. Instead, they wanted to be spoon-fed the procedure. The person who gave the original answer responded that they could not give them steps and instead provided a link to follow a download. As you can see, lousy questions lead to very little response.
Now We Are All Smart!
Obviously, it is important to think before asking questions. You have to put in effort to create meaningful questions with sufficient information in order to get informative responses. After reading through the guidelines on smart questions and looking at real examples on the consequences of smart and dumb questions, I will be more careful in the future. I would have benefited from reading the guidelines before my summer internship. However, I learn best through experiences and doing this exercise just reinforced the skills I gained this past summer. I am now prepared to always make smart questions; hopefully I will get quality answers back!