When trying to learn a new topic or something new, you probably have asked a question right? I know this sounds obvious, but think about it. It would probably be really difficult to learn something new if we didn’t ask questions. I believe that questions are fundamental to learning. Today, I watched a video that I related to called How To Get Out of Tutorial Hell (Step by Step Guide). It’s a video talking about how many people who try to learn programming get stuck in this learning hole called tutorial hell. Many people, including me have succumbed to this genre of learning, where I thought that watching a five hour java script tutorial was going to make me a master frontend developer. Questions are fundamental because not all of us are going to always come out of the same situation or experience the same, it’s important for us to have a baseline of understanding for us to learn. I bring this video up because it talks about a strategy that even I have used in the past without even realizing it, and that is QDD (Question Driven Development). You essentially have a goal of something you want to make, and will have questions about how to make it as you go. You write down those questions and look them up to answer them. There have been countless times where I got stuck on some issue and bug and had to use something like StackOverFlow to help me solve an issue. This essay will explore how smart questions are important to software engineers and how smart questions influence problem solving and collaboration.
In an essay from Eric Raymond called How To Ask Questions The Smart Way, Raymond shows his readers how to effectively ask questions in online forums and communities. Raymond pushes the importance of researching a problem or question before asking for help. He suggests that you should always look up your question before you start asking questions, save yourself some time and see if someone has already done the work for you. If your question is specific enough or you’re having a difficult time finding an answer, then you should make sure you’re asking the right question, communicate clearly, and provide enough information.
Why should we ask smart questions? Asking smart questions will more than likely get you closer to your goal than asking a bad question. There is no such thing as a dumb question. Smart questions will most likely receive smart answers rather than bad answers.