When it comes to asking question, it’s always better to present your inquiry in a smart and educated. Not only will you benefit from stranger’s answers on the internet, but other strangers might benefit from it as well. One takeaway from Eric Raymond’s “How to ask question the smart way”, is to ask questions that people feel comfortable and possibly enjoy answering. Such as, ask question to help each other understand the situation more or/and better. Rather than asking one liner question, that provides no context, with the intention finishing your homework. These types of people are considered “Losers” or, historically refered to as “Lusers”. Instead, before asking a question on a forum, to anyone or anything that host a group of people, providing context will definitely get more results than asking less intellectual questions like, “Why doesn’t my code work” without providing the code.
For example, consider this question on StackOverFlow. We can see that the user asked the question the title page. Which is great and straight to the point, as all question title should be. However, reading the title might give you a headache as it did for me since; it makes me want to answer the question, with a couple more question to answer it. When the user asked “How to return the array variables values to another function on javascript?”, we’re not sure if he’s asking us how to return the array variable values, or if he wants use to pass it to another function, or both. This is a good example of a bad question being asked, simply because we’re unsure of what’s being asked and is difficult to respond. Upon opening the page, we can see that he has provided some code and asked another question, “How to show the letter ‘b’ when I click the button ?”. Being provided with a code, that barely shows any comment, it’s hard to determine the goal of this code, thus harder to answer any questions related. In fact, one user even went as far as insulting the person asking the question.
This question could’ve been asked better if we knew the goal. To do that, we should fix up the grammer. For example, the question could have been, “How do I get an array variable value, and pass it as a parameter to another function on JavaScript?”. This is totally understandable, with vouching from my friends who’s knowledgeable with codes. Upon providing the code, the user could’ve explain the code, explaining each function and their purpose. As for asking, “How to show the letter ‘b’ when I click the button ?”, it could’ve been said as “How to display the letter “b”, after clicking the button on someFunction()” or something similar.
“Smart” is a subjective term. Something, or someone, may be smart to others, but might not be. Consider this question on StackOverFlow. In my personal opinion, I would consider this a smart question. The forum page asks “What is the purpose of passing arguments to anonymous functions in this manner?”. From the start, it’s a question that understandable and straight to the point. It even made me curious to see what “manner” is being referred to. Prompting me to open the forum page and get me engage. Upon reading the page, he describe the event that lead to a curiousity moment that made him asked the question. Some codes were provided, and context upon it that was understandable. At the end of his context, he follows up with possible solutions to his own question, that may challenge the other forum member’s answer. It’s obvious that the person asking the question is not only trying to find an answer, but understand it as well. Benefitting himself, as well as other such as myself, in learning more about Javascript.