Asking Smart Questions for Great Answers

What exactly does it mean to ask “smart” questions? To one person, it could be a question that has a thought-provoking, open-ended answer, and to another, it might be a question that many other people were curious about, but weren’t sure how to ask. Since we are young, we are told to always ask questions: to teachers, professors, potential employers, and the list goes on. At a young age, we are told that there are no “stupid” questions, but in any field, there is a right way and a wrong way to ask a question. Smart questions are questions that are precise, intriguing and to-the-point. Most importantly, the audience, such as an experienced programmer or hacker, should not feel like they wasted their valuable time answering a question a person didn’t put any effort in asking. The person asking questions without much thought isn’t well-respected or regarded by any community, and usually left unanswered or with sarcasm. As written by Eric Steven Raymond, “it’s simply not efficient for us to try to help people who are not willing to help themselves. It’s OK to be ignorant; it’s not OK to play stupid”. (Image retrieved here.)

Asking a Question: The Right Way

Stack Overflow, a site used by developers, programmers, and students, is home to thousands upon thousands of questions and answers. Many questions are asked and answers given on a daily basis; while some are asked in the smart way, others are not.

A question asked in a “smart way” is by this programmer who offers a precise and straight-forward question received a good amount of feedback and answers from the community. This person asked a question the smart way, which allowed the person to receive a few hundred upvotes along with a variety of answers. The main part of this question which deemed it as a smart question was that even after a decade, the question continued to receive efficient and effective help from programmers and the community. This question was interesting enough for programmers to answer them, along with supplemented other users who were just starting on the basics. (Image retrieved here.)

Q: What is a NullPointerException, and how do I fix it?

What are Null Pointer Exceptions (java.lang.NullPointerException) and what causes them?

What methods/tools can be used to determine the cause so that you stop the exception from causing the program to terminate prematurely?

Asking a Question: The Wrong Way

On the other hand, a person who asked a question in the “not smart way”, proceeded exactly the way the author Raymond wrote not to. Although this question was decent, and clear, it could have been worded better. The main issue was not the question in itself, but the way this person approached it. A lengthy piece of code with no explanation of the error was given, and a question asking for the answers goes against precisely what Raymond spoke about. This person was not willing to work on finding the issues caused, but rather requesting for the solution to his code, which also diverged from his original question. The question asked “how something was done” rather than “what is wrong with my code?” The question, a snippet of the code, and a follow-up question is included:

Q: How do you do a chain of if statements in C? [closed]

  if (grade >= 75) {
    printf("\nPASSING");
    getch();
    goto Sol;

        ........
    
    else {
        printf("FAILURE");
        getch();
        goto Sol;
    }
    
This is my code so far but it won't work. What should I do to make it work?

Not only did this person receive four downvotes in two hours, and have the question closed after 90-100 minutes, but the people answering the question weren’t in agreement either, leading to nearly all answers associated with this question having downvotes too. The writer of the question was fortunate that the people weren’t too harsh or sarcastic, and continued to answer and help the best they could. This affected the audience who possibly had the same questions, but were eventually confused by the original person who asked the questions, and the confusing, ineffective and inefficient answers that were given. Some comments on ineffective answers included:

C: Whoever downvoted should explain what is wrong... – Gerhardh

C: If you switch the order of your conditions, you can avoid needing to check for an upper boundary. Start with highest value and continue towards lower. – Gerhardh

C: Although the OP did not express themselves clearly, I believe it is the intent of the OP to output "PASSING WITH HIGHEST HONORS" instead of only "WITH HIGHEST HONORS". In that case, both cases must be combined. See my answer for a solution which does this. – Andreas Wenzel 
    

Final Thoughts

In truthfulness, for a beginner, it is not always black and white what is considered a smart question and what is not. In order to expand one’s knowledge, it’s important to have a deep understanding of “smart questions” by observing the ones in community sites, and attempting to ask questions as well. I realized that asking smart, effective questions are crucial to software engineers, and the art of knowing how to communicate properly is a skill in itself. Insights I have gained in this experience include how I should give more thought into questions I want to ask, as well as attempting to understand the difference between a smart question, and one that is not. A final sidenote is that when attempting to ask smart questions, it is important to remember that time is very valuable for people, and the community in Stack Overflow is not obligated to help the ones who they feel are wasting their time asking questions in a “not smart” manner. There have been instances where I have written up a question to ask someone, but while reviewing my question, I was able to find the solution to the problem on my own. This is why it’s important to check and check again before requesting for help.