Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
How to ask questions and find the right answers
Search
Florian Plank
November 09, 2013
Programming
2
340
How to ask questions and find the right answers
An introduction to finding help online when beginning programming. Given at RailsGirls Oulu.
Florian Plank
November 09, 2013
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Florian Plank
See All by Florian Plank
Ready, set, immersion!
polarblau
0
170
Prototyping all the things
polarblau
2
170
CoffeeScript vs. ECMAScript 6
polarblau
5
3.5k
Design for a complex Reality — Siili Breakfast Edition
polarblau
0
130
Enabling Design for a Complex Reality
polarblau
2
130
A primer on Content Security Policy
polarblau
1
400
Rails and the future of the open web
polarblau
3
130
Brief Ruby/Ruby on Rails intro
polarblau
3
180
Ruby Idioms
polarblau
3
570
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
Blazing Fast UI Development with Compose Hot Reload (droidcon New York 2025)
zsmb
1
300
今ならAmazon ECSのサービス間通信をどう選ぶか / Selection of ECS Interservice Communication 2025
tkikuc
21
4k
Discover Metal 4
rei315
2
140
Rails Frontend Evolution: It Was a Setup All Along
skryukov
0
160
ruby.wasmで多人数リアルタイム通信ゲームを作ろう
lnit
3
490
チームで開発し事業を加速するための"良い"設計の考え方 @ サポーターズCoLab 2025-07-08
agatan
1
430
Rubyでやりたい駆動開発 / Ruby driven development
chobishiba
1
730
Node-RED を(HTTP で)つなげる MCP サーバーを作ってみた
highu
0
120
すべてのコンテキストを、 ユーザー価値に変える
applism118
3
1.3k
ISUCON研修おかわり会 講義スライド
arfes0e2b3c
1
450
코딩 에이전트 체크리스트: Claude Code ver.
nacyot
0
530
初学者でも今すぐできる、Claude Codeの生産性を10倍上げるTips
s4yuba
16
11k
Featured
See All Featured
How to Think Like a Performance Engineer
csswizardry
25
1.7k
KATA
mclloyd
30
14k
Bootstrapping a Software Product
garrettdimon
PRO
307
110k
Building Adaptive Systems
keathley
43
2.7k
Six Lessons from altMBA
skipperchong
28
3.9k
Side Projects
sachag
455
42k
[RailsConf 2023 Opening Keynote] The Magic of Rails
eileencodes
29
9.6k
The Myth of the Modular Monolith - Day 2 Keynote - Rails World 2024
eileencodes
26
2.9k
Optimising Largest Contentful Paint
csswizardry
37
3.3k
The Art of Delivering Value - GDevCon NA Keynote
reverentgeek
15
1.5k
Product Roadmaps are Hard
iamctodd
PRO
54
11k
Measuring & Analyzing Core Web Vitals
bluesmoon
7
510
Transcript
H W TO ASK QUESTIONS AND FIND THE RIGHT ANSWERS
You will f*ck up.
You will f*ck up. Every day.
And that’s okay.
And that’s okay. It’s the best part, really.
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding.” Khalil Gibran
(A story of a button.)
Getting ahead in 5 easy steps
Admit that you have a problem. 1
Walk away. 2
Narrow it down. 3
A Is something broken? B Are you stuck?
- What does it take to trigger the problem? -
What is it that you want to achieve? - What happens instead? A
- What is it that you want to achieve? -
What is involved? - Where are you getting stuck? B
Research. 4
A “Do you have a name”? Check the documentation.
None
None
A + B Too fuzzy? — Use a search engine.
Don’t bother with site searches.
None
?
What does it take to trigger the problem? What is
it that you want to achieve? What happens instead? A WHEN THEN BUT
What is it that you want to achieve? What is
involved? Where are you getting stuck? B WHAT WITH HOW
- Leave your emotions at the door. - Formulate your
question with the answer in mind. - Be speci c in your terms. - Consider variations of your problem. - e order of the search terms matters. - Let the results guide your next question.
A + B Evaluate the results.
- How old is an answer? Check the date. -
How trustworthy is the source? - Explanation or just a code snippet? - Close, but no cigar? —Can you adapt an answer to your use case?
Ask for help. 5
None
(What is Stackover ow and how does it work?)
So, you think you’re ready to ask a question?
Have you exhausted all other means?
Did you search for similar questions?
Really?
Really? Alright then —
None
None
- Leave your emotions at the door. - Be speci
c, be brief.
None
None
None
- Leave your emotions at the door! - Provide all
necessary context. - Show that and what you’ve tried. - Be speci c, be brief. - Make it relevant to others. - Keep an open mind. - Be nice.
None
- Use as little tags a as possible. - Don’t
use buzzwords. - is is not a honey pot!
None
None
Now wait. Go, do something else. Be patient.
…
Found what you needed?
Found what you needed? Take some time to understand.
Comment. Ask follow–up questions. Be grateful.
…
Repeat. ∞
Experts Beginners
Experts Beginners Highly specialized questions Universal questions
Someone somewhere had the same problem than you before.
Give up.
Give up for the moment
Give up for the moment, but never for good.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Writing Ruby is a magical experience, but Ruby is not
magic.
Here’s something to get you started:
None
None
@polarblau