Not everyone can start off with a smart question. We were all once a beginner and that is where we started. We all make mistakes asking our first stupid question and nobody has a talent to know everything. Most likely that along the way, someone has helped you or you asked for help. We all have gone through the learning stage and faced challenges in understanding various concepts or coding practices. It is not easy because when I first started my coding classes, I have asked many stupid questions. Constantly asking for help because I was lost. Even through searching the internet, sometimes what I search, does not help me with find my answers. So I needed to step back and reread everything through the instructions and what is missing. Progress starts with looking back at yourself and realizing the bigger picture first.
The ability to ask smart questions is important for software engineers. But it’s not just about solving immediate problems. Software engineers recognize the value of clear communication, which contributes to a positive and collaborative development environment. A smart way is someone asking the questions, why or how, which most importantly I believe is a greater question than asking what because for what questions, you can find them online. But for how and why questions, it asks the questions to how these program works or why does these things connect to the way they are.
Now one of the not so smart questions would be sharing your program. I’ve looked through some of the questions on Stack Overflow and many post their questions along with their code. I don’t believe that sharing your code will be the smart idea because you’re not learning from it. You’re taking someone’s solution and implementing it on your program to make it work without fully understanding how the code works. I would exclude beginners because the basics are needed to learn but with people taking big projects, it’s the most concerning. Now there are some people who would think that after taking someone’s solution, they would study their code, but no, they’re just simple reading and thinking “Oh, I get it.” I guess that is why we need to keep practicing over and over until we get it right, just like the WODs.