The Inevitable in Coding

28 Jan 2021

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It is Inevitable

It is inevitable when as a computer science student that you will get lost on the material and try to search for answers online rather than asking questions. The benefit of computer programming is that there are online communities that are actually ready, willing, and accessible to give you the help you need, but it is up to the learner on how they want to use these online resources to their advantage. If they are asking direct questions with the only answers having to be a direct one, would this benefit the student in the long run? With that, I will go into what I think makes a question a ‘good question.’

‘Smart Questions’ & Good Answers

Good questions typically have an open ended answer, meaning there are multiple ways to answer the question as well as the question getting to the point and not asking for a direct answer to the problem especially if the question is a homework assignment or quiz/take home exam question. Doing this might benefit you by possibly getting the question on your exam or homework correct, but what would you have learned by doing this? In the long run, asking questions without being too direct on getting an exact answer is fine, as long as the answer itself was well thought out, descriptive with its explanation, and bonus points for clearing any confusions without giving a direct answer. An example of a good question can be found here. This was a ‘smart question’ because there is no direct or exact answer to this question, as well as it being a question that gets straight to the point on what the asker does not understand, and there are also multiple/different answers to this question. An example of a bad question can be found here. This is an example of a bad question because it is asking for a direct answer which is also apparently on a final exam, these are the types of questions that will not benefit us in any way in the long run.

The Long Run

Overall, good questions are much more beneficial in the long run than asking questions just for the sake of getting a direct answer. This way, you can learn the process of how the question can be solved rather than having someone do it for you whilst you not really learning anything out of it. There are no shortcuts in life, and there does not exist a successful person who hasn’t worked hard to get where they are. Asking questions is part of life, not everyone knows everything, and it is ok to not understand what you are learning, for that is the point of you learning it in the first place, but asking the ‘smart questions’ rather than the ‘not smart’ questions is really common sense as to which type of questions are better to ask.