> When a user asks a question on X, it would be better to first assume that he knows what he’s freaking doing. Yikes. SO is where I learned to program, and if

> When a user asks a question on X, it would be better to first assume that he knows what he’s freaking doing. Yikes. SO is where I learned to program, and if this were the norm, I wouldn't have made it. If I ask a question the premise of which suggests I'm _way_ off, I wanna know. I have to imagine this scenario is far more common than the one you outline, wherein the poster has arbitrary constraints on his/her problem that need to be respected. Let the voting system decide which answers are useful for posterity & which aren't. But to the answerers who take the time to help askers tackle the spirit of a question--not just its text--I say: thanks.