How to ask for help in a way that will get you useful answers.
Sometimes you have tried DevTools, Google, Stack Overflow, documentation and Rubber Ducking your code and still you don't have an answer to your problem and you need to ask for help.
Believe it or not, asking for help with a development problem is a skill all unto itself. As code is so complex, a short question is rarely enough to get you a useful answer. I think of it like being on the phone with your doctor. If you just say "I'm sick, please help" the doctor isn't going to have anything to go on to help you, because you didn't give them any detail about what was wrong. Likewise, asking for help with your code also requires relevant detail and explanation about what your problem is so that the community have the best chance of helping you solve it.
Here are a few key points to include with your questions in slack:
- What is/isn't happening? Say what you are trying to do, what the expected behaviour is, and say what the actual behaviour is. Say what context the problem occurs in. The more detail you can give here the better.
- What have you already tried? Be detailed about this. It will save you time because others won't then go suggesting things you already tried.
- Share your code. This one is important. If sharing your GitHub repository link, make sure you recently pushed your code so it is up to date. And state which files or lines of code are relevant to your question.
- If pasting code into slack, please use a code block. Click the
</>
icon in the message window to do this. Code blocks are much easier to read and help speed up the debugging process.
- If your page is deployed, share a link to it so others can see the problem for themselves, or inspect it with DevTools. If you are using GitPod you can also share the link you use to preview your project and it should be accessible to others while the workspace is active.
- If you got an error, please paste it in with your question.
- Screenshots of your workspace (or your live page if you can't share the link to it) can be helpful, they often include details that you didn't realise were important that other students can spot easily.
- Make sure you ask your question in the right channel. Don't ask a complex question for your milestone in an Essentials channel, please ask it in the channel for the milestone or portfolio project you are on. You will get help faster this way.
For more tips on writing a good question, see this excellent repo John Lynchhttps://github.com/teraspora/slack-questions-ci