Smart, or stupid Question?

Honestly. There is no such thing as a stupid question and it is related to your way to ask the question. I had asked a lot of questions incorrectly in the past. Many teachers still would like to help me with that, but mainly because we are students. However. There is no one that is responsible to answer your question on the Internet. You can still get good answers from those experienced users, the answer you will get depending on your way to ask them. Programmers will face all kinds of different problems and questions on coding. Asking questions is a kind of ability and how to ask a question is a kind of skills.

Asking questions in a good way

Before you ask a question, Google it first. Google is an immediate search engine. Even though it does not have the specific answer, it can still provide the most related link to you. Google is always a good friend when you have a problem. Let’s see an example of a good question.

[I am using the Scanner methods nextInt() and nextLine() for reading input. It looks like this:

System.out.println("Enter numerical value"); 
int option; 
option = input.nextInt(); // Read numerical value from input System.out.println("Enter 1st string"); 
String string1 = input.nextLine(); // Read 1st string (this is skipped) System.out.println("Enter 2nd string"); 
String string2 = input.nextLine(); // Read 2nd string (this appears right after reading numerical value)

The problem is that after entering the numerical value, the first input.nextLine() is skipped and the second input.nextLine() is executed, so that my output looks like this:

Enter numerical value 
3 // This is my input 
Enter 1st string // The program is supposed to stop here and wait for my input, but is skipped 
Enter 2nd string // ...and this line is executed and waits for my input

I tested my application and it looks like the problem lies in using input.nextInt(). If I delete it, then both string1 = input.nextLine() and string2 = input.nextLine() are executed as I want them to be.]

Until now, the question already received 19 answers and many uses discussed under each answer. From my point of view, I think this question is successful and the person who asked this question got a perfect answer for his problem. Let’s analyze the way he asked. The user did not simply ask why the scanner skipped to the next code. He provided each step in his code. From his description, I believed that he already searched google and did not get his answer. He showed each step and also addressed the couple times that he tried to use different ways to solve this problem. In that way, those experienced users who answered this problem can easily exclude those possible and potential issues. A smart question has to be detailed and people can easily see the core of this problem. In that way, users will more prefer to answer this kind of problem.

Stupid Question?

As I said, “there is no such a thing as a stupid question.”. However, I saw some examples from stack overflow. Those people who asked questions either are a person who wants someone spoon-feed him either is a person who doesn’t know how to ask a question properly. Let’s see these two examples.

Is there a way to empty an array and if so possibly with .remove()?
For instance,
A = [1,2,3,4];
How can I empty that?

I will definitely respond to him with ”STFW”. This is a common problem in Java, there must be someone who already asked before. Why don’t you go search in Google. Google is always a useful thing for those common problems. Search it before you ask.

This is the second one:

Is there any way to recover a Facebook hacked account? 

How can I recover a Facebook account that has been hacked and probably erased from the platform?

Asking these questions is a clear matter of “I don’t want to learn myself, please spoon-feed me.”. None of those users will answer this kind of question. People can;t help you with this at all.

Summary

When you post a question on a website and expect someone will help you with your problem., you should realize that people are not responsible to answer your question. Please ask nicely and address the question with more details. It can lead you to get effective and helpful answers from those experienced users. There is one point you need to remember all the time, search before you ask. You will save more time and learn more stuff.