Smart Questions

22 Jan 2016

Programming is never a secluded practice as there is always a link to the open source community, especially when we are stuck in a perplexed state. Luckily, we are not alone as others may have gone through the same problems and with so much information on the web, we often find ourselves asking questions in both our careers and everyday lives. Specifically in the software engineering field, there are limitless methods of implementation and steps where we may become puzzled. By asking smart and insightful questions, we can easily obtain the information we need by ensuring our questions are concise and meaningful. As software engineers, communication is one of the most essential skills to develop as interacting with others by asking “smart questions” ensures clarity to potential responders. Greater understanding leads to quality responses and discussion. We will examine positive and negative cases of asking questions on StackOverflow.

What is the best way to test a multiplayer network game in unity without build the app ? It is something like in editor unity there is two editor which one is a copied editor. So we can login in one editor and login in second editor with different user. Is there a tool like this ? Thanks

This is an example of a poorly written question. Within the first sentence, the reader is thrown off with its vague details as there is no clear area where the reader can offer assistance. Anyone attempting to answer this question is definitely starting to become confused. In the second sentence, the question becomes completely incoherent as the potential person responding to the question has already closed the page. By ensuring that questions are asked in a clear, concise, and coherent way, readers will be better equipped to provide solutions to problems. Although there are no strict guidelines, generally it is important to choose the correct forum, use meaningful subject headers, be precise, informative about your problem, and ask questions in a standard format. In addition, questions should describe the problem’s symptoms, goals, and problematic steps. Additionally, it is never a good idea to ask homework questions. It is also worth noting that it is never appropriate to demand something from people who are not required to help and are doing so out of generosity.

Recently, I ran some of my JavaScript code through Crockford's JSLint, and it gave the following error: Problem at line 1 character 1: Missing "use strict" statement. Doing some searching, I realized that some people add "use strict"; into their JavaScript code. Once I added the statement, the error stopped appearing. Unfortunately, Google did not reveal much of the history behind this string statement. Certainly, it must have something to do with how the JavaScript is interpreted by the browser, but I have no idea what the effect would be. So what is "use strict"; all about, what does it imply, and is it still relevant? Do any of the current browsers respond to the "use strict"; string or is it for future use?

Here is an example of a “smart question”. The person does a good job explaining their current working knowledge with JavaScript to help provide background context and information. Additionally, the user has a general idea of the solution and has put in effort to understand the problem but was unsuccessful. These types of questions lead to better reception and thus quality answers. As software engineers, asking “smart questions” is essential to how we learn new knowledge, as we must understand how to ask questions in a concise, informative, and meaningful way. By abiding to general methods of asking smart questions, we will be able to obtain helpful answers that will ultimately free us from a roadblock in our work.

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