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There's a delicate balance for moderators to achieve and I don't envy them. Some questions are clearly daft, the person hasn't done any prior research, the que

by matt_j 8y ago

There's a delicate balance for moderators to achieve and I don't envy them. Some questions are clearly daft, the person hasn't done any prior research, the question is vague, the problem is not apparent and it's a big waste of time trying to help. These questions are often shut down mercilessly and I think that's probably the best thing for them, but I've no doubt it's a terrible experience for the guy asking the question. I think the SO blog post addressed it pretty well by outlining a more streamlined question form with clear prompts for each part of the question. Other questions are not daft, but perhaps are not asked well. They need to be edited, re-framed, boiled down to the essential parts, an example included, the expected output included, that sort of thing. It's tiresome to run into questions like this over and over, and I can understand how people might comment out of frustration, but it's good to prompt the OP to fix their question up so it can (and probably will) be answered well. Kid gloves and kindness are important here, it's not always easy to ask a good question. The SO blog post went a long way to addressing this and I look forward to seeing some changes on the site. Overall I think SO is a fantastic resource with many amazing contributors, so it's good to see them responding to this problem and I hope they can make it even better.

nookoking 8y ago
In my experience, SO is just not useful anymore for asking questions. All the easy questions that could be solved by just RTFM have been answered, many times. And the more nuanced questions are fraught with bias (see: "The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List"). As for "boiling down" and "re-framing" questions, they won't get answered. Usually ever. You'll get a few comments from people trying to help, with suggestions you've already tried, pitying your high-effort question with no answers. Then, you'll go search through the annals of your language, either to find that one guy twenty years ago published a piece of your puzzle in his blog, or that there's nothing at all in any sort of literature on how to solve your specific problem. You'll then end up doing your own testing and research, spending an inordinate amount of time testing and verifying, until you come up with a brand spanking new type of abstraction that solves your problem perfectly. You'll write up your dissertation, post it on your question, and set it as "answered." Then you'll curse under your breath at how f useless SO is, besides being an over-glorified forum / "selected excerpts from the manual." I've stopped using SO, because I've realized all of your software problems can be solved with two things: 1). RTFM 2). Explore the software/language Anything else, IMO, breeds bad habits. I say this as someone who used to rely solely on internet tutorials and other people's examples before I had to do work where my code had to be perfect or else I'd be out of a job/sued/[something violent]. I had to quickly learn how to do things myself and find the answers to my problems by straight scientific method and I know I've become a better software engineer because of it. Having experience in both, I can say with conviction, that anyone who uses SO as anything more than a pair of training wheels that should be discarded after your first 6-12 months is liable to become a "bad" programmer (see: Ruby developer community).
Mithaldu 8y ago
You have a reasonable reply by nookoking, but you probably can't see it because he's banned. nookoking, if you see this, maybe mail the mods. I have no idea why you'd be banned, your history looks fine, but all but your very first post are dead.

by matt_j 8y ago

nookoking 8y ago

In my experience, SO is just not useful anymore for asking questions. All the easy questions that could be solved by just RTFM have been answered, many times. And the more nuanced questions are fraught with bias (see: "The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List"). As for "boiling down" and "re-framing" questions, they won't get answered. Usually ever. You'll get a few comments from people trying to help, with suggestions you've already tried, pitying your high-effort question with no answers. Then, you'll go search through the annals of your language, either to find that one guy twenty years ago published a piece of your puzzle in his blog, or that there's nothing at all in any sort of literature on how to solve your specific problem. You'll then end up doing your own testing and research, spending an inordinate amount of time testing and verifying, until you come up with a brand spanking new type of abstraction that solves your problem perfectly. You'll write up your dissertation, post it on your question, and set it as "answered." Then you'll curse under your breath at how f useless SO is, besides being an over-glorified forum / "selected excerpts from the manual." I've stopped using SO, because I've realized all of your software problems can be solved with two things: 1). RTFM 2). Explore the software/language Anything else, IMO, breeds bad habits. I say this as someone who used to rely solely on internet tutorials and other people's examples before I had to do work where my code had to be perfect or else I'd be out of a job/sued/[something violent]. I had to quickly learn how to do things myself and find the answers to my problems by straight scientific method and I know I've become a better software engineer because of it. Having experience in both, I can say with conviction, that anyone who uses SO as anything more than a pair of training wheels that should be discarded after your first 6-12 months is liable to become a "bad" programmer (see: Ruby developer community).

Mithaldu 8y ago

You have a reasonable reply by nookoking, but you probably can't see it because he's banned. nookoking, if you see this, maybe mail the mods. I have no idea why you'd be banned, your history looks fine, but all but your very first post are dead.