Getting good answers on StackOverflow – part 10 of n

Tip #10 – What, not how

When posting a question, don’t say how (or how not) you want people to answer it (for example, “I don’t want to hear about xxx”, “Only solutions in yyy”), but explain what you are attempting to achieve. This gives context to your question and better answers will result.

By telling people how you want to do things, you are limiting the answers and possibly offending them.

Tip #1 – Ask a question

Tip #2 – Be polite

Tip #3 – Ask one question

Tip #4 – Descriptive title

Tip #5 – Write in English

Tip #6 – Pertinent code samples

Tip #7 – Stay on topic

Tip #8 – Do some research

Tip #9 – Stay engaged

3 Responses

  1. Chris April 9, 2015 / 16:30

    This is something I don’t understand. People get so pissed if you don’t provide full context of you problem, they yell, they down-vote and everything. Sometimes you can’t provide full context, because either the problem is too complex, and you end up writing a 10 pages question that nobody will read/follow/answer, or simply you would like to know exactly why your solution doesn’t work.

  2. Uno_ke_Va March 8, 2016 / 20:32

    Well… if you have to respect requirements, you need to specify the “how”.

  3. Oded Coster March 10, 2016 / 22:31

    There is a difference between saying “these are my constraints” and saying how to solve them.

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