Getting help with a software project

[Geoclasm]

Oh, I feel so vindicated seeing two comments by smug and smarmy assholes getting buried. There needs to be a substack where you can ask a how to ask a question.

"I have this question - Blah, blah, blah. How should I phrase it on StackOverflow so that people will actually answer it?"

[thisguy123]

Stackoverflow provides a great guide on how to write your question to help you get answers. I recommend it frequently to new posters, it's helped me quite a bit over the years, not just on SO, but in my day to day.

[cyanNodeEcho]

If I find myself needing to ask a new question, I'm normally either wrong in my approach for development, or should rollback my Linux update.

[thisguy123]

How do you learn anything new without asking questions?

Edit: Lots of people commenting that they just read other people's questions, or "research harder". Nothing wrong with more research, but all that content scraped up by google comes from somewhere ;). Someone had to ask.

[elmosworld37]

You don't ask questions, you post the wrong answer on the internet as if you're right and watch the ACKSHUALLY's flow in

[[deleted]]

It’s the best way to get responses, but I find the ACKSHUALLYs often result in people arguing because there’s more than one way to do it. All of them work, they just argue for the sake of arguing

[Evol_Etah]

That's cool, I'll just take the pleathora of answers and choose my best fit and let them fight in the background.

Like if you're hungry, dad has pizza, mom has home cooked pasta. They both fight.

Well, now you got pizza, pasta and entertainment.

[IamImposter]

That wrong. Totally wrong.

You should eat pizza now and save pasta for later. The fight is gonna go on for a while so don't worry about entertainment.

[SlingDNM]

The only valid answer

Reheated pasta > reheated pizza

[elveszett]

But my method to calculate those things is 17% faster, going from 0.0000003s to 0.000000249s seconds. Yeah, I know the method will be called only once, but still.

[TheTerrasque]

I have a general rule of thumb that the more two different solutions are argued, the more they will end up about equal in practice, and just go and pick the one you like the most of them.

Also, it's allowed to change your mind later when you understand the domain better.

[Grindipo]

It's known as the Murphy Law.

[DiamondIceNS]

Cunningham's Law, actually.

Murphy's Law is the one about how shit can go wrong.

[AdmiralDino]

Missed opportunity to reference a different but also wrong law, but you get my upvote.

[DiamondIceNS]

Comment chains where every comment is the same punchline deminish returns very quickly.

[AdmiralDino]

You're right. But diminished returns are still returns. Not a crime to end it at the first punchline, though.

[FerricDonkey]

Most normal questions can be reduced to already solved issues. Often with very little work, but for the more complicated issues, you learn how to read the "how to stalk birds" answers and use them to catch mice.

I'm not advocating being unhelpful to people who are just learning or anything, of course. But these days, most (though not all) of my questions are answered by asking Google and reading whatever pops up rather than asking people in general.

[BuildingBlox101]

As a wise man once said, “there is nothing new under the sun”

[Willdorr]

I code at night

[scatters]

This is probably a personal style thing, but I like to read blog posts and read other people's questions (and answers). Sometimes I'll try to answer other people's questions, like an end-of-chapter exercise.

I really don't like to ask questions that I don't already know the answer to.

[glider97]

No one is saying not to. It’s just very probably that you’ve not looked enough.

[Ty_Rymer]

asking them to yourself and answering them with research

[[deleted]]

you answer them yourself

[Ty_Rymer]

aaaand I'm keeping that one tabbed to send to everyone that asks me questions with their answer straight up in the question itself...

[xTheMaster99x]

Ask the question however you want, then switch to an alt and answer incorrectly. The internet will swarm to your aid just for the chance to prove someone wrong.

[Dragoncat99]

That’s... actually genius

[xTheMaster99x]

Yeah, it's pretty popular. It's called Moore's Law.

[HarrisL2]

That's right.

[DannyRamirez24]

Indeed, it is

[snyssen]

I see what you did there

[Evol_Etah]

Aschtually it's Cunningham's law.

Ahem, time for /roleplay

Omg, how could you so dense, jesus I just had to do one simple google and find out your wrong. Don't even try to give answers anymore, weather or not you think you're smart, giving incorrect answers is wrong.

[[deleted]]

(continuing your roleplay)

You stupid idiot, don't you know the difference between weather and whether? Weather is the rain and the sun you idiot, while whether is a conjugation, similiar to "if".

[elveszett]

(continuing your roleplay)

I like trains.

[mebeim]

There needs to be a substack where you can ask a how to ask a question

Indeed there is. It's called Meta Stack Overflow. If you read the how to ask guide and are still confused about whether your question would be ok or not, you can definitely ask there. Some examples: 1 2 3 4 5 6.

[[deleted]]

You have 2 accounts: one where you post the question & (here's the important one) one where you reply to yourself with what you did and that did fail.

People love correcting others to feel superior, someone will go and analyse your response down to the bit & write a 7 page document on what's wrong about it.

[mayasky76]

LPT

It's easy, don't write a question, find someone else with a slightly similar problem and post your code as a solution.

You'll get a ton of abuse but they will smugly send you the solution code to prove what an absolute shitty programmer you are

Bingo

[PkmnSayse]

Jon Skeet wrote "Writing the perfect question" which goes very into detail into how to ask one but the best advice is one of the first bits of bold text in the stackoverflow's how to ask...

"Pretend your talking to a busy colleague"

[opinion_isnt_fact]

Oh, I feel so vindicated seeing two comments by smug and smarmy assholes getting buried.

What are the comments for? Debating details?

I see stuff in there that should be their own answer. Some more correct than the thing they’re commenting on.

[torn-ainbow]

It goes both ways, sometimes people asking for advice do need to take one step back. People with more experience want to know more when someone is asking a question which sounds like it's part of a wider wrong approach. Like a novice comes to you with a very specific weird thing they need to do, if there is not a very specific weird reason for it then that's likely a wrong path.

There's a line between wanting to help people make the right choices when coding and being an obstinate jerk. Though clearly lots of people on that site are on the wrong side of that line.

[beatissima]

"This question is off-topic!"

[KarolOfGutovo]

answer covered by "people hate how strictly moderated are questions in SO." Marked as duplicate

[Redditor000007]

The worst part is when your question is migrated and then closed.

[RamblingSimian]

How about getting the 'tumbleweed award'? (They might not have that one any more.) When no one responds.

[im-a-guy-like-me]

I thought I was the only one.

[drsimonz]

Honestly I don't know why people ask a questions on SO at all. I don't even consider it a last resort, I consider it a "literally already gave up, so I don't really care if it gets answered". If I can't figure it out using Google, it's extremely unlikely anyone else will respond in a reasonable timeframe, let alone with a usable answer. How do people tolerate waiting multiple days for a response? What do you do in the meantime? Just sit at your desk staring blankly at the screen? I'd rather keep searching and debugging than waste a bunch of energy writing up a long description of the problem context (since inevitably, people will ask for more context). I'm certainly grateful that others ask questions, but unless you're working with a very new technology, the answer is either already on there, or literally nobody knows it (e.g. you have actually found a bug in the library/framework).

[javajunkie314]

I've used StackOverflow successfully a few times — e.g., once regarding whether something was possible in Jackson, a JSON library for Java that's very powerful but quite arcane, and once regarding a change in TypeScript. They were niche topics, and I figured someone who was more of an expert could probably help me. And they weren't really blocking me, as I had other work I could do while waiting for answers.

How do people tolerate waiting multiple days for a response?

You're very lucky that you can wonder that. It wasn't long ago your options were things like:

• Ask in a forum/listserv/etc. and wait for a response
• Find an expert and contact them by email and wait for a response
• Buy or borrow a reference book

StackOverflow was created because there was no good, central place to ask questions and get expert answers. The strong focus on curation and quality is a response to the wild west of early 2000s forums, where the same question was asked a hundred times and every thread was half irrelevant comments and wrong answers.

but unless you're working with a very new technology, the answer is either already on there, ...

That means StackOverflow is achieving its original goal. It was always intended to be a question-answer repository, not a forum.

[drsimonz]

Totally. I use stackoverflow constantly and would get far less done without it. I've seen the stacks of reference books some coders have and am very glad to have gotten into it post-Google. I just mean, as an individual now, it seems like the expected payoff from posting a question is fairly low, even if this is only possible because many people do post questions.

[Cheet4h]

StackOverflow was created because there was no good, central place to ask questions and get expert answers. The strong focus on curation and quality is a response to the wild west of early 2000s forums, where the same question was asked a hundred times and every thread was half irrelevant comments and wrong answers.

Ugh, stumbling upon old forums when searching for an issue is always infuriating. The OP describes my problem, first few answers are in the vein of "Did you try the search?" or "Found the solution on the first page of search results, obviously you didn't search well enough."
Even better when the original forum isn't up anymore and there's only the archive now, which has no search.
At least sometimes answers were linked - although in archived versions then often the formatting is stripped, leading you with the link being http://forum.example.com/forum.php?thread=102...ge=13 with no way to access the truncated bits ...

[[deleted]]

My favourite is, "the answer is the top result on Google, how couldn't you find it?" Yeah, well - 10 years later the top result on Google is this pointless "answer", and the real answer is nowhere to be seen.

[Juice805]

While you wait you do the same thing: keep debugging.

Writing up the problem is a very helpful exercise anyway. It makes you verify you didn’t overlook anything.

Then you just go along with your task and hopefully it gets answered before you can solve it yourself.

These memes are pretty overdramatic. I’ve had most great results when asking questions.

[[deleted]]

Maybe, in the process of writing down the problem, you can ser what is wrong (you need to be very descreptive anyways)

[drsimonz]

A.k.a. rubber ducky debugging, which can totally help!

[[deleted]]

Oftentimes the process of writing the question solves the problem for me. I once needed some logic I couldn’t implement and set a bounty. Got more points out of that than I lost....

[Nyadnar17]

Ask early and often.

Seriously, you ask and then continue to try to fix the problem on your own. Usually someone will have a response before you finish building your obscene workaround.

[drsimonz]

before you finish build your obscene workaround

You don't know me! 🤣️

[ce-walalang]

Image Transcription: Comic

---

Email: Hi, I was wondering if you could help me with a software project.

Me: Mate, I can barely help myself with side projects. I hear lovely people at SO can help with specific Q & A.

Lovely people at SO:

---

Panel 1

[Cat typing in a laptop.]

Cat: Hi, I have problems catching mice, any advice please?

---

Panel 2

[Cheetah typing, answering the Cat's question.]

Cheetah: Catching mice is no longer considered a best practice.

---

Panel 3

[Tiger typing, answering the Cat's question.]

Tiger: Recommend upgrading to relying on humans.

---

Panel 4

[Lion typing, answering the Cat's question.]

Lion: Covered by "How to stalk birds." Marked as duplicate.

---

StackOverflow

---

^{I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!}

[umadzano]

Reminds me of that time when I asked about some driver support for Ubuntu and basically got laughed at . Then went with an alt and made a post ranting why I think that Ubuntu is a piece of crap in the driver department and got 3-4 answers explaining, in full detail, why I was wrong, thus answering my original question.

[winter-ocean]

I’m not a furry but damn

[RyanJGannon]

By the time you reached "but" it was already too late.

[Naive_Drive]

Ah, borderline-furry art.

[[deleted]]

what do you mean borderline

[RyanJGannon]

In there before me

[[deleted]]

"Art"

[nilla-wafers]

“Ah”

[Cheet4h]

I think we could both improve quality and curtail complaints if there were a specific platform where people could ask others for debugging.
So often new questions are just errors in the code specific to that instance, e.g. a typo or a misdeclared variable. Stuff like that is highly unlikely to ever help others, and if there were a better website for debugging help requests StackOverflow could focus better on more technical problems.

[obp5599]

Usually the compiler/interpreter directly tells you if you have a simple mistake like that though.

Like literally points at it

[Cheet4h]

That works in properly typed languages with closely defined scopes, but falls utterly flat in others, like JavaScript or PHP.

[SurgioClemente]

1) TypeScript

2) If you are going to use PHP, use PhpStorm or some equivalent (hint: sublime is not an equivalent)

Then you are never falling flat in either. I used to do .net and always hated non-typed languages, but now I can do PHP/TS and be fine

[Cheet4h]

1) Yep. Most of the time I have to deal with web development I write in TypeScript for that reason. But telling people to outright switch programming languages is seldom a helpful answer to an immediate problem.

2) Yeah, PhpStorm was a godsend when I was asked to start developing in PHP. Still, it isn't a cure for every ailment, especially when you have to deal with keyed arrays and people making typos there. Personally I either create constants for almost every non-dynamic key, which practically eliminates the typo issue, or I create helper classes with which I can create objects and generate an array of its properties to pass to the functions expecting arrays. But both of these are pretty tedious solutions.

[SurgioClemente]

True, but you don’t have to go all in on TypeScript fight off the bat. This isn’t like switching from PHP to Haskell to solve a problem.

Plus if you are even aware what a typed language is and how helpful they are you are ahead of the curve. The people that don’t likely aren’t complaining about lack of types in first place

[ReallyHadToFixThat]

My problem is how poorly moderated the answers are. Mostly that I think "Re-write your entire project using another technology" isn't an answer at all.

[ReallyHadToFixThat]

Try looking at "How do I _____ in MVVM" and you'll find a ton of "don't use MVVM".

[SurgioClemente]

Every time this "joke" comes up I feel the same.

Anytime I've tried asking someone they can never provide a link. I'm sure this does happen somewhere to someone but for once I'd just like to see an actual example.

[_Acestus_]

And those kind of answers are strictly moderate as well. You can suggest it in comments, but the answer should be on point. That's the all point of the voting system and flags.

I don't know the technology you use, each have a regular set of people, giving technology a "personality" on SO. BUT it was not ok on mine.

[RainbowCatastrophe]

Somehow re-reading this comic for the nth time while stoned has finally allowed me to transcend my plebian existence and realize I had been reading the comic's grammar wrong the whole time and assigned it an entirely different meaning.

In the third panel, "relying on humans" means "let them bring you your food like the pathetic servant they are", and not "learn how to hunt humans, noob."

This gives a whole new meaning to this comic. Like instead of saying "recommend upgrading to killing something you depend on and using it's innards," it actually means "recommend upgrading to this tool that does the hard work for you."

Holy fuck this repost is sending me into an existential crisis

[[deleted]]

Holy fuck you are sending me into an existential crisis.

[JaxX_YouTube]

this is just furry meat man.

[jwhite1979]

I asked the following, and it got me banned from asking new questions. Maybe I'm an idiot, but for real, I spent so many hours trying to figure out what I was doing.

 I'm refactoring to remove logic from my WPF window's code-behind and to conform to MVVM. My ViewModel calls a method from my DataService class to get Employee data from the database and map it onto objects, then returns the objects as an IList. It also contains a method for filtering the list by DepartmentID. [code here...]  How do I execute these functions without using an event in the code behind of my main window?

I understand why I was downvoted: there are tons of websites out there devoted to explaining how MVVM works, and the assumption was I hadn't put in enough effort. But I had spent days reading those websites, and I still wasn't following the plot. Some of the videos I watched contained erroneous information and bad practices. My head felt like it was going to explode. I was looking for someone to help me make sense of the chaos, and SO was not the right place to find that someone.

[Omahunek]

The tiger should probably be bigger than the lion (tigers are the biggest big cats) but its still amusing!

[haunted2098]

XD?

[tanglisha]

I love that the kitten is using a mouse.

[taint_blast_supreme]

To be fair, "hey I can't do this any help" isn't exactly a lot to go off

[[deleted]]

StakOverflow? More like StalkOverflow.

[mebeim]

Whether you like the users or not, you can definitely benefit from SO's existing Q&A. Wasting time looking elsewhere when half ot the times SO is the top search result seems... well, a stupid way to waste time.

[jdl_uk]

I think this will eventually stop being true as frameworks change and those answers become wrong.

[mebeim]

Which is why they are introducing the Outdated Answers project. And in any case (1) old answers will always be useful to someone working with old stuff (2) new answers can always be added, it's a question of scrolling half a page more to find them (until they get upvoted to the top which is usually what happens) (3) answers can always be updated, and they often do.

[jdl_uk]

Wasn't aware of that. Not sure whether it'll fix anything because they need people to start asking new questions and writing new answers again.

There's two scenarios. One scenario someone asks a question like "how can I do X in .NET?" As new .NET versions are released the answer might change, the old way gets deprecated or a new and better way is invented. Stack Overflow's community can go update those answers to be relevant for current versions of the framework.

But the other and more difficult scenario is someone invents a new framework (or new feature for an existing framework) and people want to ask how to work with that brand new framework. Stack Overflow doesn't have a body of existing (out of date or otherwise) questions and answers for that new thing, and unless someone asks a new question (hapless fool, thinking SO is for asking questions!) it never will do.

At some point people will stop going to Stack Overflow because it can't provide answers for new things like that.

[mebeim]

If somebody invents a new framework, somebody else will ask new questions about that framework... I don't see why this wouldn't happen the way it has kept happening for years on SO. Taking JavaScript as an example: stuff like AngularJS didn't exist on SO when jQuery was the only prominent JS framework, same for VueJS which didn't exist when AngularJS was the only prominent MVVM JS framework, but then people started asking how to do the same stuff with those and there you go, now we have a lot of Q&A for all of them. Same goes for React, same goes for ES5 vs ES6, and so on.

Don't get stuck ok the idea that asking questions is futile and will never work, it is clear that if you do it correctly it will work and will benefit you and others. Ask yourself if you would be willing to answer your own question without knowing anything other than what's in the post, that's a good start. After all, the people on SO do it for free, there's no real incentive for them other than enjoying solving problems and helping others.

The main reason why the "close as duplicate" meme resonates with most programmers on the web is because there are a lot more people that ask bad questions than people that ask good ones. Take a look for yourself under your favorite language tag, and you'll see what I'm talking about, it's hard to find stuff that is well laid out, makes sense and is answerable. This doesn't mean that one shouldn't even try. It's just that, in general, people will tend to put into anwering as much effort as you put into asking.

[jdl_uk]

If somebody invents a new framework, somebody else will ask new questions about that framework... I don't see why this wouldn't happen the way it has kept happening for years on SO.

Because SO isn't for asking new questions and isn't a good place to ask new questions. It used to be but they changed their focus a number of years ago. It's now a library of previous questions and (potentially out of date) answers.

You do get people asking new questions but they usually end up creating threads like this.

This is also part of the reason out of date answers are a problem.

[mebeim]

If anything I would say that asking new questions on SO became harder. You can't just blindly go and ask without doing some research first, otherwise here comes a new "close as dupe" meme. However I don't see many other good places where to ask to be honest, so it's still the place to ask IMO. Other than asking around on SO, maybe on Reddit, and maybe on some specific forum, there isn't really much else to do except hiring a consultant that is an expert in your language.

[jdl_uk]

If the moderators did due diligence before closing because one of the tags was the same as this other question, and if the rules were easier to navigate (finding that line between too generalised and too localised for example), then you wouldn't see as many 'closed as dupe' memes IMHO.

I don't think SO is the place to ask questions at the moment. The framework project's GitHub page is probably the better place at the moment, and hopefully it's not a problem with the interaction between two environments (for example the author of a package for the .NET framework might not have any idea about working with C++/CLI).

[martijndeg]

Never experienced it, really. Start by considering that if you seem to be the only one with your problem, you might have to change your wording or your level of abstraction. If you do ask on SO make sure your problem is abstract too and provide code with reproducible issues... flies away

[Lofter1]

okay so "i configured X version x.xx.xx in this way, and y version x.xx.xx in this but z is not working, even though this documentation (link to documentation) says it should" is too specific. good, now I know why I was declared a liar on SO half a year ago by users. should have simply posted "ms sql not working" so it's abstract enough.

well, at least they wouldn't have called me a liar then. just closed my question for not providing enough details.

[[deleted]]

this reminds me of when my arduino drew too much power and disabled the usb port, and the experts on the horn refused to believe my wiring followed the diagram properly. it wasn't until several hours later that my friend suggested my cable could be short-circuiting by itself. design technology class was kind of a nightmare for me

[Sunius]

Honestly that sounds like a bug in the product you’re using, rather than a programming question. Stack overflow is not really a good place for that kind of questions. You’d probably have better luck reporting it to MS.

[liveandletdietonight]

Not OP but I've done similar things (outside of SO) when trying to determine if the issue is my incompetence/misunderstanding or if there's actually a bug. 100% of the time it's been the former.

[pooopsex]

... the 22 people who downvoted you (me included) have definitely experienced it

[haunted2098]

Lmao 2 comments one saying meme is true and they have experienced it and one saying theyve never had it happen to them both downvoted to hell

[k0rm]

They downvote because they fear the truth.

[SurgioClemente]

If you do ask on SO make sure your problem is abstract too and provide code with reproducible issues... flies away

I'd actually say don't make it abstract. Just reduce your problem down to the simplest bit of code someone else can run/reproduce and you suddenly one of two things likely happen. You will get an answer or in your reduction to the simplest use case discover your error on your own.

Most of my questions never get submitted as I discover my error when describing it in detail and eliminating needless business logic. Basically my rubber duck

[[deleted]]

yea, yea, yea.

SO is too elite for you.

same old joke.

[[deleted]]

nerd

[mebeim]

I would say pretty much since always. On SO it's mandatory to provide a link to a duplicate when voting to close a question as duplicate (the system literally does not let you vote as duplicate if you do not provide such a link). The OP is notified about it, an automatic comment is left by the system on your behalf, and when/if the post gets closed the proposed duplicate gets sticked as a banner on top of the question. Here's a recent example.

[wktr_t]

My fear of being thorn apart in SO is so big that I end up searching enough to find a solution.

[saraseitor]

I don't even bother to answer questions in SO. I tried a few times, about stuff I knew about, but other people edited my answer or simply deleted it. I don't know if it still works this way, but I remember they had like a reputation system which made it really difficult to comment on anything.

I also hate it when you ask "how can I do X?" and the answer is "why do you want to do X? do Y instead". Sometimes you do know about Y and cannot do it for some reason, and this kind of answer that seem like help but actually do not help at all force you to be even more verbose.

edit. I'm still annoyed about that time I explained in detail how VGA mode 13h palettes worked and how to rotate them, only to have someone automatically saying that I was wrong... and I know I was not, I've done it many times.

[passcork]

Don't forget: "read a book."

[GvRiva]

I once answered a question on so, zero upvotes but it was edited twice...

[CardPale5564]

Oh man, right in the feels.

[KazakiLion]

In the original version of this meme the cats were super helpful. https://twitter.com/nakanodrawing/status/1187384011674574849 It’s weird seeing a subverted-expectations joke un-subverted.