Intelligent Questions for Dummies
30 Jan 2025
**How is smart questions be applicable in computer science?**
As a Software Engineer, there is a great deal of responsibility when it comes to this profession. This particular computer science field could involve working on the front end, back end, or even full stack, being responsible for both. To manage either or both of these tasks, the engineer would eventually run into bugs or particular issues in development or the maintenance process. Fortunately, Developers/Engineers are mostly never working alone and can rely on their team to help with the projects that are assigned. But despite having others to help with the process, it’s extremely important to communicate problems and issues that have occurred.
When asking for help or assistance, it is critical to ask consice and clear questions when explaining the problem, especially in test phases or when bugs arise in the code. Smart questions helps with determing specific issues. It cuts down the amount of time by skipping the generalizations and help pinpointing what actually needs to be addressed. No software engineer wants to go through open ended problems, taking a large amount of time just to figure out what is the issue that needs to be addressed.
**What is an example of a smart question?**
Here is an example from Stack overflow
The developer is having issues with Git because of a macOS update.
The developer experienced an error message:
**“xcrun: error: invalid active developer path”(/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools)**
Developer states after the MacOS update he navigated through his companie’s codebase in the command line to check “git status” in the repository which recieved the invalid active developer path error message.
There was an update to the error which was shared to the forum, “missing xcrun” at location (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun
The developer summarized the question: How to fix git and the command line tools?
**""Link(stackoverflow)-https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52522565/git-is-not-working-after-macos-update-xcrun-error-invalid-active-developer-p/52522566#52522566""**
I noticed each response were similar in how to fix the git error. “By updating X-code comman line” The reason he had a thorough
response, is because he asked a thorough question, explaining the details of what happened, what changed, and the type of computer the developer has. He eliminated any open questions to the problem and hyperfocused on the particular bug that was happening in git.
As programmers and software engineers, communication should be excuted in similar fashion to better insure quick response and effiecent formating of the problem at hand, so the co-worker that is helping or the developer giving the help can give more concrete answers instead of searching aimlessly for the problem.
**What is an example of a non-smart question?**
An example of not-smart question is the oppoite of the what is considered smart. Simply saying, “my code doesn’t work, help!” will not show any revelance to the actual problem. It will cause confusion and waste the needed time to finish the project or task that was given to others.
An example of this, comes from another Stack overflow submission.
A student posted a comment in Stack overflow with the tittle, “C File Homework”
And proceeded to copy and paste the code, which caused some confusion within the responses. Granted the developers answered to the best of their ability with possible solutions. But, the overall response was negative, since copy and pasting a problem without any information will attract unhelpful responses.
**link:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20574925/c-file-homework**
**conclusion**
From my understanding, smart questions is essential for effiency and clarity. This does not just apply to the software engineering field but to any job or classroom a person undergoes. Clearly identifying problems and explaing the steps that were taken, the things that were attempted to solve said problem, time stamped updates, and useful information is useful.