How to Ask Questions on Stack Overflow
and not die trying
Presented by Oded Coster
@OdedCoster
.NET South West meetup - May 21st 2015
Who am I?
- Early user of Stack Overflow (August 2008)
- Developer on the Stack Exchange Q&A team
Overview
- Why should we ask good questions?
- How do we ask such questions?
- Stack Overflow specific advice
Why ask good questions?
Someone might have the answer
Why ask good questions?
It can clarify the problem to yourself
Why ask good questions?
-
You will get an answer faster
One that actually solves your need
- Answers will be better and more relevant
- Make good example to others
So... how do I do it?
Research your problem
- Official documentation
- Tests and experiments
- Stack Overflow search
Take your time
- Read and re-read your question
- Short, descriptive title
- Pertinent tags
- Ensure the whole makes sense
- Once posted, stay around and respond to comments
Make the question easy to answer
- Show your research, explain what you tried
- Ask about the problem, not your attempted solution
- Include code that shows the problem
- Limited scope - should be answerable in a few paragraphs
- Very broad questions are bad
Keep those who answer in mind
- Volunteers that are giving their time and expertise
- Strangers on the Internet
- From around the world
- Mostly at their place of work
Details that matter
- Don't forget to actually ask a question
- and just one question
- Check your grammar and spelling
- Be polite, but no salutations
- Don't include unnecessary details
- Formatting - learn Markdown
A few examples
Bad Question
Bad Question
Good Question
Recap
- Asking good questions matters
- Take your time to ask
- Make it easy to answer
- Be mindful who you are asking help from
Resources
- Oded Coster - My blog
- Jon Skeet - Writing the perfect question
- Andrew Thompson - sscce.org
- Eric S. Raymond
- SO Help Centre
Questions?
Slides are shared at OdedCoster.com/dotnetse2015/