There is a well known meme where people talk about how the questions they asked were ‘cringe’ and make fun of the questions people ask. One such example is the comic below that showed up in my feed. Here the refrain is that having to read all the questions that someone has posted on Google/ChatGPT about programming is equivalent to Torturing them because of the implication being that the questions were so basic that everyone should know the answer to them. I get that people are trying to be funny but there is a problem with these kinds of posts because it actively discourages people from asking questions, it builds the narrative that people who post ‘stupid’ questions are not smart and their questions are cringe. It actively promotes the imposter syndrome because people start thinking that they don’t know much when they have to search for ‘basic’ stuff.
Let the torture commence. Let’s reveal all the coding related questions you asked on Google and ChatGPT
Instead I prefer the XKCD approach called the 10,000.
In this strip, Randall presents a mathematical argument against the idea of making fun of people for their ignorance.
There are so many things that I know that others don’t, just as there are so many things that you know that I don’t know. This is because each of us has different life experiences/upbringing etc. Expecting everyone to know the same things as you do is super egoistical.
I have been a developer for about 25+ years now and still I look up syntax when I am coding. Knowing the proper syntax for a command doesn’t make you a programmer, knowing what command/logic to use is what makes a programmer. I can always look up the syntax but the basic logic to solve the problem is something that I have to come up with and that is what I usually test when interviewing people. I need people who can solve problems not someone who can regurgitate the syntax for a function in C++/Python.
When I was in high-school (10th Standard) my senior project was to create an address book where we used the locate command quite extensively to make the output pretty (this was in GW-BASIC). So in my preboard exams, during the viva I was asked to give the syntax of the locate command. I always got confused on the parameters for this function and couldn’t remember if it was LOCATE [row][,[col] or LOCATE [col],[row]. I guessed and gave the wrong order so the teacher told me that she doubted that I had coded the program as I didn’t even know the syntax of the command. I responded by telling her that I don’t need to remember the syntax because I can refer to the book when I need to know the syntax but the logic of the program is what I focused on and challenged her to quiz me on that. I remember she was pretty taken aback by this and I did get a good score on the viva but she told me not to be so blunt during the actual board exam viva’s.
I have sat in meetings where people have talked about concepts or used examples I had no clue about and sometimes I would interrupt to ask for clarifications and in other times I would make a note and do lot of research before the next meeting so I understood what we were talking about. I am not saying that people shouldn’t do research or put in effort before asking questions. I am saying that we need to be supportive of new comers into the field who don’t have the experience to know all the things that might be obvious to you. In the past I used to refer folks to the How To Ask Questions The Smart Way by Eric Steven Raymond & Rick Moen when I talked about how to ask questions. However as I have gotten older and more experienced I find that while the FAQ has some good points it is absolutely condescending and not really the right approach to asking questions. So Instead of that I now refer people to Julia Evan’s post on How to ask good questions.
How to ask Good Questions
Teaching people that it is ok to ask questions is an important part of being a mentor and training the next generation.
– Suramya