The topic of this essay becomes a little ironic considering the fact that the majority of students have grown up being told the phrase “there is no such thing as a stupid question”. Granted, its purpose was to encourage students to be willing to ask about things they weren’t completely sure of, despite how they feel it would make them look. However, after having that phrase engraved in my mind over the past 18+ years of my education, it seemed as if Eric Raymond in his widely revised guidline has just thrown it out the window exclaiming “What? There is 100% such a thing as a stupid question and guess what? People ask them all the time!”. So diving into that guildline, I was a bit skeptical about how this guy can convince me that something that almost all my teachers from kindergarten to high school and even some of my professors in college has made to be true was a complete and utter lie. Despite my skepticism, I took his guildline with a pinch of salt and when coming out of the waters of the DO’s and DON’TS of question-asking, I get it.
Raymond doesn’t necessarily want to throw the people that ask “stupid questions” under the bus for not knowing the answer. Interestingly enough, he treats the art of question-asking as a form of business. In his set of guidlines, he explains the importance of “selling” your question so that more people would be willing to answer it. Suffice to say, in Raymonds point of view, a “stupid question” isn’t necessarily a question in a literal sense, but a question that would not recieve a lot of good feedback. Before this essay, I myself, along with many other students I assume, have never looked at question-asking in that light.
It is an interesting concept to ask a question as if you were trying to sell a product to the highest bidder. In the world of Computer Science, this idea is very important. Those who take on Computer Science in any form (whether it be Network Security, Web Development, etc.), are generally people who like a bit of a challenge. They have to be, considering that Computer Science is no walk in the park. Therefore, when they scroll through the forums of Stack Overflow, as Raymond says, the questions that they decide to answer are usually those that pertain to their interest of wanting a challenge. So it is important to structure your question in the most desirable-to-computer-scientists way as humanly possible.
There are many different rules that Raymond stresses such as making the header meaningful and being specific about the probelm you have. Finding a question on Stack Overflow that fit at least most of the rules he has was a tough journey. Many people, including myself, don’t really look at questions the way that Raymond does, therefore, there are a lot of vague and confusing questions. This I found buried deep in the Questions section of the website is an example of what I believe is “smart questions” to Raymonds standards. The user structures their set of questions very nicely, which makes it easier to read. They are very straight to the point and state that they have searched online prior to asking these questions, which is one of the rules in the guidline. Looking at the answers, I’ve noticed that the user has recieved a number of informative and well-thoguht-out answers from several different people. This is a perfect example of a “product” being sold to the “highest bidder”. The question was executed in a clear and straightforward manner, which yielded many useful answers. This example however, is what Raymond would call a “stupid question”. This user does everything that would be considered a DON’T in the guildine for asking question. The user simply states that they need a button designed in HTML/CSS with a link to a picture of the button. Despite not even properly asking an actual question, the user also expects someone to do their work for them, which is a big red flag. This is very unappealing to hackers and it shows in the answers section, where people are telling the user to “show some effort”. Their “product” definetely did not sell in the way the user intended.
These two questions are proof of the aspect of marketing your questions in order to get the best results. As much as most don’t like to admit it, no one knows everything there is to know in Computer Science. Even the best programmers with years and years of practice still get stumped from time to time and needs to ask for a second opinion on things. So it is very crucial to understand the importance of effective question asking. Following Raymonds set of simple rules will lead anyone closer to success and getting the answers they need. I do believe the phrase “there is no such thing as a stupid question” is still true in a sense that if we come across a problem we aren’t sure of, don’t be afraid to ask. However, in the end, Raymond shows that when we do ask, make sure we ask that stupid question in a smart way.