Brains Over Blabber: Why Smart Questions Matter More Than Smart Answers

In my eyes, smart questions are characterized by clarity, specificity, and completeness. For software engineers, mastering the art of asking such questions makes troubleshooting much better. Conversely, poorly framed questions can lead to misunderstandings, insufficient assistance, and a waste of valuable time for both the asker and potential responders. Despite this negative effect, poor questions still come up from time to time.

Speaking of questions, one prime website that us software engineers always venture to for answers is Stack Overflow. Whenever a question pops up in their mind that is not answerable at that moment, Stack Overflow is always the place to go to. So, let’s talk about this amazing source and explore this idea of smart questions!

Not so smart, but we must ask

When going into Stack Overflow, it would typically require you to ask a smart question. However, let’s look into one that is not smart from this source, “How create API for remove background application using python”:

How to create an API for a remove background application using Python. Need step-by-step guide covers everything
from setting up environment to deploying the API, making it easy to build a powerful background removal tool.
Perfect for developers and beginners alike!

Notice how the question plainly asks how to do it, expecting a full given analysis and design of this service. In addition, it is not really grammatically written correct. Finally, they need to provide clearer details to their goals!

Smart question, we must ask!

As said before, Stack Overflow would require you to ask a smart question, so let’s look at one this time. From the source, “Material-UI DataGrid Width Issue”:

Is it possible to get the DataGrid to only be the width of the rows without setting a containing div width?

I have tried disableExtendRowFullWidth={true} to help, but this only does the rows. The containing DataGrid is still full wide.

Here's my current code example - https://codesandbox.io/s/material-ui-issue-forked-j720c?file=/src/Demo.js

First, notice how they even provided a code example so that the readers can definitely see to it themselves. Secondly, the question is clear and they even attempted a command similar to this, but they need something else. Lastly, this is part of a forum that is relevant to their question!

With smart questions, you will potentially get smart answers. These answers may save a lot of your time too, so always be considerate when asking your questions or else it will pose negative effects on both sides.