Asking questions is a great way to gain an understanding of something not previously understood. Students may ask questions regarding a concept taught in class that they do not entirely understand. Employees may ask for specific information or clarification regarding a task given to them. A person new to lifting weights may ask someone more experienced to show them proper technique for different exercises. The overall end goal of asking a question, for any topic, is to gain a better understanding of said topic.
Different questions warrant different responses. A simple, clarification question warrants a simple response. A deeper, thought-out, and more complex question may warrant a deeper, more thought-provoking response that triggers lightbulbs in one’s mind. Generally, the more effort and thought one puts into asking a question, the more they will get out. A question’s return on investment is proportional to the amount of effort put into asking said question.
Many people, especially in an educational setting, often use the phrases “There are no bad questions” or “There are no stupid questions.” Is this really the case? As I stated before, what one puts into asking a question is what they will get out. Smart questions are well-defined, with clear, applicable purpose behind them. Smart questions about a topic show that ample effort was put into understanding information or content, and that one has a genuine interest in bettering their own understanding. Smart questions are concise and provide plenty of detail in context. A stupid question on the other hand, shows no effort being put in to understand information or content. Stupid questions are also vague and lack specificity, which makes the purpose behind them ambiguous. A smart question has a higher return on investment than a stupid question.
In software engineering, asking smart questions is important. Asking a smart question in an open forum allows for someone to reply with a specific and detailed answer that can be applied to a problem in development. Not only does asking a smart question provide a solution to a problem, one also adds to their own knowledge.
On Stack Overflow, I found a question that I thought was smart. The question was well structured and their post contained relevant details and examples as to what they were asking. The question asked is “Are ‘Arrow Functions’ and ‘Functions’ equivalent / interchangeable?” The responses were very informative and provided examples of different use cases for arrow functions and normal JavaScript. The users that responded provided code snippets and explained why arrow functions are not the same as regular functions. The original Stack Overflow post is here.
While there may be smart questions on Stack Overflow, there are also stupid questions. One question on Stack Overflow asked “Will eclipse no run classes?” This question and post provided no detail to whatever problem this user is encountering. This post has no code, and to paraphrase, says, “I tried to run this, I am encountering this issue, please help.” Providing no context or specific details to the question, with a clear lack of intent to understand the issue is what makes this user’s question stupid. This question was closed and received no answers because the question needs debugging details. The original Stack Overflow post is here.
Overall, when asking a question, one must show that they have put in effort into understanding their issue and concepts revolving around it. One should include relevant details and information around the question so that readers can understand the context of the question and suggest better solutions to it. Asking a smart question is beneficial not only for solving problems, but for adding to one’s own knowledge. The investment will pay off.