3 ms·
Parade: always ask "what have you tried?" first. Then it's acceptable to just give just a direction (the simplest of which is "try googling for it") and to tell
by norswap 10y ago
Parade: always ask "what have you tried?" first. Then it's acceptable to just give just a direction (the simplest of which is "try googling for it") and to tell them to come back when they've tried if the problem persists.
- mooreds 10y agoSee also, rubber duck problem solving: https://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/
- blowski 10y agoI found this the most useful thing about StackOverflow - it taught me how to both ask and answer questions more effectively. Bad: > "I have an error. What do I do?" Better: > "I have this error: {BLAH}. What do I do?" Best: > "I'm trying to do X. I have this error: {BLAH}. I read the documentation and tried doing Y, but it didn't fix it. How I can I do X?" Similarly, I try to avoid giving answers that are just "change this line to x". You're just a code-fixing machine into which you pump questions and answers are spat out. Nobody learns anything that way, and you're going to answer the same question over and over again, and get annoyed.
- S4M 10y agoIt happened to me as well, and now I think that half of the times I am asking something on StackOverflow, I end up finding the answer myself while writing the question.