3 ms·

> George: I’m doing X, and I got this error, how do I fix it The question should be "I want to do A. I have tried doing it using X, but it doesn't work. Ca

> George: I’m doing X, and I got this error, how do I fix it The question should be "I want to do A. I have tried doing it using X, but it doesn't work. Can you help me find a better solution?" The key is knowing what you want to achieve - which is A.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
I have tried this in the past and then the answer becomes "why would you want to do A?".
- rzzzt 6y ago
  To achieve Y, of course.
  - drran 6y ago
    Well, there are multiple ways to achieve Y. I prefer way B, because it faster/cheaper/simpler/more durable/etc. than A.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  If they're trying to gather context, I understand asking a question similar to that. Though that exact question seems a bit pointed.
- zabzonk 6y ago
  Possibly you don't, but you must want to solve _some_ prime problem.
BeetleB 6y ago
Often, explaining what A is and why you want to do it is a ton of work, and my question (and the answer I'm looking for) is often very simple. Competent people don't like having to provide a lengthy justification for a simple question. In my experience, most people who push back and start saying "You really want Y" are simply not willing to listen to the story about A - especially if it will take more than 1-2 lines to explain it. I've found this to be the case both online and in person. As a somewhat related example, a decade ago I was building a PC and had been given a huge discount on a pretty powerful Intel CPU. I figured out all the parts (motherboard, etc), and went to a well known forum to post it and solicit feedback. Now the CPU was overpriced. You could pay 40% less and get another CPU that was almost as good. I knew this, but it was irrelevant as with my discount, I was getting it cheaper than the alternative. I posted my question, and acknowledged the price discrepancy, and almost all the responses were: Don't get that CPU, get the cheaper one. I made it explicit that I wanted a technical answer and not an economic one. I even said "Well, assume I'm getting it for free." The problem was that pointing out that I was getting my CPU even cheaper with a discount did not change anyone's response. Some people ignored it altogether. Others simply refused to believe I had a discount, claiming I was a wealthy newbie who was hell bent on paying full price just to get a tiny performance improvement and wasn't willing to admit it. Eventually some people took me at face value and answered my questions, but I spent a lot more time justifying my choice of CPU than on the actual questions I wanted answered. Also, asking: "I'm trying to do X. I'm aware of Z and I agree it's usually the way to go, but I have some restrictions such that Z won't work." Doesn't work. "I'm trying to do X. I'm aware of Z but I really want to see if I can do this with X." Doesn't work.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  Competent people, nearly by definition, aren't asking questions on Stack Overflow. (We're all incompetent sometimes.) pcmasterrace fanbois arguing about their tribal alliance to CPUs is a different matter.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  > my question (and the answer I'm looking for) is often very simple If you're asking questions then confidence that the answer - which you do not know - is simple betrays the reality that you've become falsely confident of your understanding despite the fact that you don't know what you're doing or else you wouldn't have a question at all. Asking questions is a skill, whether you are asking the questions of a machine or of people. An insistence that everybody else is doing it wrong because you get unhelpful answers is a mistake nobody else can fix for you.
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    > If you're asking questions then confidence that the answer - which you do not know - is simple betrays the reality that you've become falsely confident of your understanding despite the fact that you don't know what you're doing or else you wouldn't have a question at all. That's a lot of assumptions without even knowing the question, and is symptomatic of troublesome responders. A lot of times the question I ask is of the form "Yes/No". As in "Is it possible to do it using X?" If the answer is "Yes" I may have follow ons, but it's amazing how often I cannot get an answer to this question. Even a "Yes, but it's a bad idea" will suffice, but I'm more likely to get several "You probably want to use Y". That's simply not answering my question at all. "Can doing it via X handle a size of N?" Sure, maybe doing it Y is usually better than doing it with X, but telling me that is not answering my question, and the majority of times Y will not solve my problem. I also may already know that Y scales better, but my point is that even stating that up front in the question will not get me the answer I am seeking. Sometimes I'm just curious. I know Y is better, but I want to know what the limits of X are. It's an appropriate question. Depending on how well I know the person, I may give context, which is part of the skill in asking good questions. However, in an impersonal online setting, this backfires more often than not. As the example showed above, it usually leads to a 5x more effort spent in explaining and justifying the context than in discussions that are on the route to my getting an answer. (As an aside, I do come from an academic background, where it is the norm to explore, and be curious. A lot of the questions they ask and discussions they have are not for anything practical. Which then becomes annoying when they ask a question online and the other party has all kinds of assumptions on why I may want to do X.) > Asking questions is a skill Agreed, and so is answering questions. Jumping to conclusions on what the questioner is trying to do means the person has poor answering skills.
jbjohns 6y ago
Couldn't disagree more. The first thing that should always be done is answer the question as asked. Do what ever you want after that but anyone who doesn't should have their post removed. The issue is this: it is completely irrelevant why the person asking wants to do X or A. Stackoverflow and others are public websites and anyone who ever will want to do X/A will probably only find that page as an answer. It is beyond arrogant to assume anyone who could ever ask the question is just missing your guidance on what they really want to do. To be concrete, I find myself in these situations due to company restrictions that I simply cannot lift. So I need to do something I know very well shouldn't be done or fail (and someone else will do that or worse anyway). So I search all over the web and find a Stackoverflow page... that tells me why I shouldn't be doing it. And since it's been "answered" no one else will ever bother, and if I ask anywhere I get linked to that page.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

I have tried this in the past and then the answer becomes "why would you want to do A?".

rzzzt 6y ago
To achieve Y, of course.
- drran 6y ago
  Well, there are multiple ways to achieve Y. I prefer way B, because it faster/cheaper/simpler/more durable/etc. than A.
ZephyrBlu 6y ago
If they're trying to gather context, I understand asking a question similar to that. Though that exact question seems a bit pointed.
zabzonk 6y ago
Possibly you don't, but you must want to solve _some_ prime problem.

BeetleB 6y ago

Often, explaining what A is and why you want to do it is a ton of work, and my question (and the answer I'm looking for) is often very simple. Competent people don't like having to provide a lengthy justification for a simple question. In my experience, most people who push back and start saying "You really want Y" are simply not willing to listen to the story about A - especially if it will take more than 1-2 lines to explain it. I've found this to be the case both online and in person. As a somewhat related example, a decade ago I was building a PC and had been given a huge discount on a pretty powerful Intel CPU. I figured out all the parts (motherboard, etc), and went to a well known forum to post it and solicit feedback. Now the CPU was overpriced. You could pay 40% less and get another CPU that was almost as good. I knew this, but it was irrelevant as with my discount, I was getting it cheaper than the alternative. I posted my question, and acknowledged the price discrepancy, and almost all the responses were: Don't get that CPU, get the cheaper one. I made it explicit that I wanted a technical answer and not an economic one. I even said "Well, assume I'm getting it for free." The problem was that pointing out that I was getting my CPU even cheaper with a discount did not change anyone's response. Some people ignored it altogether. Others simply refused to believe I had a discount, claiming I was a wealthy newbie who was hell bent on paying full price just to get a tiny performance improvement and wasn't willing to admit it. Eventually some people took me at face value and answered my questions, but I spent a lot more time justifying my choice of CPU than on the actual questions I wanted answered. Also, asking: "I'm trying to do X. I'm aware of Z and I agree it's usually the way to go, but I have some restrictions such that Z won't work." Doesn't work. "I'm trying to do X. I'm aware of Z but I really want to see if I can do this with X." Doesn't work.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
Competent people, nearly by definition, aren't asking questions on Stack Overflow. (We're all incompetent sometimes.) pcmasterrace fanbois arguing about their tribal alliance to CPUs is a different matter.
tialaramex 6y ago
> my question (and the answer I'm looking for) is often very simple If you're asking questions then confidence that the answer - which you do not know - is simple betrays the reality that you've become falsely confident of your understanding despite the fact that you don't know what you're doing or else you wouldn't have a question at all. Asking questions is a skill, whether you are asking the questions of a machine or of people. An insistence that everybody else is doing it wrong because you get unhelpful answers is a mistake nobody else can fix for you.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  > If you're asking questions then confidence that the answer - which you do not know - is simple betrays the reality that you've become falsely confident of your understanding despite the fact that you don't know what you're doing or else you wouldn't have a question at all. That's a lot of assumptions without even knowing the question, and is symptomatic of troublesome responders. A lot of times the question I ask is of the form "Yes/No". As in "Is it possible to do it using X?" If the answer is "Yes" I may have follow ons, but it's amazing how often I cannot get an answer to this question. Even a "Yes, but it's a bad idea" will suffice, but I'm more likely to get several "You probably want to use Y". That's simply not answering my question at all. "Can doing it via X handle a size of N?" Sure, maybe doing it Y is usually better than doing it with X, but telling me that is not answering my question, and the majority of times Y will not solve my problem. I also may already know that Y scales better, but my point is that even stating that up front in the question will not get me the answer I am seeking. Sometimes I'm just curious. I know Y is better, but I want to know what the limits of X are. It's an appropriate question. Depending on how well I know the person, I may give context, which is part of the skill in asking good questions. However, in an impersonal online setting, this backfires more often than not. As the example showed above, it usually leads to a 5x more effort spent in explaining and justifying the context than in discussions that are on the route to my getting an answer. (As an aside, I do come from an academic background, where it is the norm to explore, and be curious. A lot of the questions they ask and discussions they have are not for anything practical. Which then becomes annoying when they ask a question online and the other party has all kinds of assumptions on why I may want to do X.) > Asking questions is a skill Agreed, and so is answering questions. Jumping to conclusions on what the questioner is trying to do means the person has poor answering skills.

jbjohns 6y ago

Couldn't disagree more. The first thing that should always be done is answer the question as asked. Do what ever you want after that but anyone who doesn't should have their post removed. The issue is this: it is completely irrelevant why the person asking wants to do X or A. Stackoverflow and others are public websites and anyone who ever will want to do X/A will probably only find that page as an answer. It is beyond arrogant to assume anyone who could ever ask the question is just missing your guidance on what they really want to do. To be concrete, I find myself in these situations due to company restrictions that I simply cannot lift. So I need to do something I know very well shouldn't be done or fail (and someone else will do that or worse anyway). So I search all over the web and find a Stackoverflow page... that tells me why I shouldn't be doing it. And since it's been "answered" no one else will ever bother, and if I ask anywhere I get linked to that page.