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StackOverflow serves a dual purpose: (1) to answer the immediate question of the original poster, and (2) to serve as a reference for anyone encountering the sa

by wdrw 11y ago

StackOverflow serves a dual purpose: (1) to answer the immediate question of the original poster, and (2) to serve as a reference for anyone encountering the same problem in the future. I'd say that (2) is more important - good question/answer pairs on SO have helped hundreds or even thousands of developers beyond the original poster. Answering "what have you tried" may help with purpose (1), but is often just distracting for (2). If I'm looking for a way to do X, reading through someone's failed attempts to do X is a waste of time. And this whole notion of making someone "struggle a bit" is entirely misplaced when you keep purpose (2) in mind. Let's say I'm not a CSS expert and I'm trying to find a way to make a sticky page footer. I can "struggle for a bit", spend maybe 30-60min researching the topic and come up with a solution myself, without ever involving StackOverflow. Multiply this by 1,000 developers facing the same problem, and you have 500-1000 hours of wasted developer effort. Compare this to spending 15min to write a precisely-worded question (but without "steps you've tried"), and an expert spending 15min to write up an answer. From that point on, the piece of knowledge is available to anyone, enormously amplifying the impact of this initial time investment. Of course I'm oversimplifying, but I see this amplification effect continuously ignored in discussions of StackOverflow posting guidelines. I think this attitude of "show your work" and "make the original poster struggle a bit" comes from the days of IRC/Usenet questions, where an answer to a question only helped one person, not thousands.

mettamage 11y ago
I forgot a bit about purpose 2, good point. "And this whole notion of making someone "struggle a bit" is entirely misplaced when you keep purpose (2) in mind." I didn't mean it that way. Struggling a bit also implies Googling an answer or looking things up on StackOverflow, it's part of the struggle before you ask someone (online or IRL). Specifically, querying Google, querying SO and typing in the question on SO and then clicking on the suggestions first are all part of the struggle since you haven't asked a person yet. "Compare this to spending 15min to write a precisely-worded question (but without "steps you've tried"), and an expert spending 15min to write up an answer. " When I think about it, a precisely worded question implicitly shows the struggle. Implicitly showing it is more effective than telling a whole story about it.
ZeroGravitas 11y ago
"What you've tried" often provides the missing context that allows a) someone to actually answer the question correctly and b) for later searchers to find it. I detest busy work, but in this case it actually often needs to be done unless you're relying on ESP.
plorkyeran 11y ago
Actually, I've found the "what I've tried that didn't work" section to be useful quite often when I land on SO from a google search. Sometimes the questioner lists something that I didn't think of that does work for my specific problem, or it's what makes me realize that the answer given won't actually apply to my problem before I waste a bunch of time on it. Sometimes it's the only part that actually matches what I searched for, so I wouldn't have even found the question with a useful answer without it.

by wdrw 11y ago

mettamage 11y ago

I forgot a bit about purpose 2, good point. "And this whole notion of making someone "struggle a bit" is entirely misplaced when you keep purpose (2) in mind." I didn't mean it that way. Struggling a bit also implies Googling an answer or looking things up on StackOverflow, it's part of the struggle before you ask someone (online or IRL). Specifically, querying Google, querying SO and typing in the question on SO and then clicking on the suggestions first are all part of the struggle since you haven't asked a person yet. "Compare this to spending 15min to write a precisely-worded question (but without "steps you've tried"), and an expert spending 15min to write up an answer. " When I think about it, a precisely worded question implicitly shows the struggle. Implicitly showing it is more effective than telling a whole story about it.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago

"What you've tried" often provides the missing context that allows a) someone to actually answer the question correctly and b) for later searchers to find it. I detest busy work, but in this case it actually often needs to be done unless you're relying on ESP.

plorkyeran 11y ago

Actually, I've found the "what I've tried that didn't work" section to be useful quite often when I land on SO from a google search. Sometimes the questioner lists something that I didn't think of that does work for my specific problem, or it's what makes me realize that the answer given won't actually apply to my problem before I waste a bunch of time on it. Sometimes it's the only part that actually matches what I searched for, so I wouldn't have even found the question with a useful answer without it.