On Wednesday 21 February 2007, kashani wrote: > Contrary to Eric Raymond's "How to Ask Intelligent Questions" it is > actually very hard to ask good questions or even search about a > subject you do not fully understand.
That's an easy one. If you really don't know the subject or how to search for answers on it, then *just say so*. The poeple reading the post then know what the deal is, know up front they will have to take the poster through it step by step, and most important of all: they know that the poster is smart enough to say he doesn't know much. The worst possible question is: "how long is a piece of string?" You can avoid that so easily by saying "I need to know how long a piece of string is, but I have no idea how to measure it and my knowledge of string is limited. Can someone walk me through the process please?" If I read the first question, I get the distinct impression I'm talking to an idiot. The second question tells me I'm likely talking to an intelligent human, who just happens to be ignorant about something. alan -- Optimists say the glass is half full, Pessimists say the glass is half empty, Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be? Alan McKinnon alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za +27 82, double three seven, one nine three five -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
