Whats a bad question? See how open ended and vague that question was? How, without any prior context you have absolutely no idea what exactly im referring to when I ask that question? What if instead I asked; “Whats an example of a bad question to ask in the context of software programming?”. See the differnece?
You’ve always been told by your teachers in grade school that there are no “stupid questions” which is technically true but there are “bad questions”. The way you ask a question can determine what answer you get. Which sounds like common sense however, when it comes to the context of software programming and coding it might be a bit harder to find the question your looking for.
Software programming has and always will be extremely complicated and sophisticated due to the nature and process of creating a program. It takes knowledge of how to create an algorithm and knowledge of the computer language itself. With that in mind how in the world do you ask a question related to coding?
When it comes to an actual good question about your code alot of factors are considered when formulating said question. What you want to achieve and context. These 2 key factors are the basic foundation to a good and maybe even great question.
Heres an example of a good question found in stackoverflow: “Is it possible to call a function peridoically in C++ with Qt function?” Here the 2 key factors were clearly considered before asking the question. They want to achieve the ability to call a function periodically with the context of using C++ and the software Qtcreator.
As a result of the question beiing appropiately posted on stackoverflow, there were 5 different and versatile answers that the original user can consider and work with in order to achieve what they want. Sure, not all of the commenters gave the same answer but they all gave a working solution that they thought will work best. What matters is the original user wanted to achieve something and they were provided with 5 different ways to achieve just that with the prior context in mind.
On the other hand, a bad question about your code most likely does not consider the key factors that make up a good question. Maybe, you might include one of the key factors but one without the other and the foundation will fall apart. If you state what you want to achieve but dont give context you’re surely not going to get the answer youre looking for. If you give context to what youre working on or thinking of working on but dont clearly state what you want to achieve you’ll end up on the same road as before.
With that in mind, consider this question: “Is there any function or something like that by that which I can create totally random strings or numbers?” In here while poorly delivered, the original user does state what they want to achieve but provides little to no context whatsoever. To begin with, what programming language is being used? Thats just one of many other questions that arise from a poorly delivered question.
From this bad question there still came responses and while in the case of the good question there were several different answers, in this case its likely none of these responses are capable of achieving what the original user wanted. If the user was relatively new to programming as well, seeing several different solutions to their question being in a foreign programming language will surely not do the trick.
So did our grade school teachers lie to us? Are there really “stupid” questions? No, but there are bad questions that give bad answers. Without proper context and clearly stating what you want to achieve youll only fill your head with more of what nobody in this world wants.
More questions.