How NOT to ask Stupid Questions
09 Sep 2021
Fool Me Once
Story time: A good experience of why it is important to ask smart questions happened to me in an ICS lab in my freshmen year. I arrived late to the lab due to my prior class finishing later than usual, and I only had several minutes to walk from one end of campus to the other, with me showing up roughly 5 minutes late. I missed the initial explanation of the lab assignment, and the usual teacher assistant wasn’t in but the professor was. Not knowing what was going on, I called the professor over and asked him “What are we doing?”, and his response was, “You can do whatever you want. You can go get something to eat, or you can do some homework, it is up to you!” in a loud and kind of sarcastic tone. Feeling embarrassed and still blindsided by his response, I simply replied “Okay” and sat there, later noticing that the lab assignment directions were on the board. At that time, I did not realize that asked a stupid question. If I could go back, I wish I could have said something like “Hi professor, I am sorry for being late, my previous class… Can you please explain the lab assignment to me or let me know any additional information that I have missed.” or something like that, and maybe I would have gotten a more straightforward and helpful answer. However due to this interaction, it discouraged me from asking questions in general for some time. I did get over it and moved on, realizing that beside this awkward interaction with the professor, he turned out to be a very good professor and one of my favorites.
Don’t Get Roasted
Asking smart questions is very important, in both a common and general sense. However, it is very important to ask smart questions when asking for help on coding forum sites, like stackoverflow. Asking ambiguous or vague questions could receive ambiguous or flamed responses. You do not want to waste a professional or hacker’s time and they don’t want to waste their time on you. You also need to make sure that your questions are formatted correctly, unlike this guy here. He handwritten his code and posted an image of it instead of typing it in. The responses to this guy’s question are some semi-serious answers, but mostly hilarious roasting. Not only should your question be formatted correctly, it also should be as clear and detailed as possible. Here, he not only put his source code into the question, but also provided additional information and test cases. Most, if not all, the responses he has gotten are legit and serious answers, with some answers receiving 1000+ upvotes.
Double Check
We all have asked stupid questions before, sometimes intentionally and some not. However, before you post your questions on an online forum, make sure you exhaust all possible resources, like checking online, check if someone already asked the same question, reading the book/FAQ, looking at the source code, or asking a skilled friend or teacher assistants. But if all that fails, then before you post your question make sure to add as much information to your question, provide the source code, and show all test cases, and hopefully you receive a straightforward answer and not get roasted by professionals and hackers.