How to ask a techincal question 'properly'

[jamesturner246]

I think it would be very useful, both to the pupil and the teacher, to include a section in the intermediate course on 'how to ask a question', or, if you like 'how to report a problem'.

The number of bug reports and discussion of issues consisting of ' I have a problem, help pls' or 'X doesn't work! these devs are useless!' is ugh... I believe that this is the perfect place to begin introducing the idea that some of the responsibility of solving a problem rests on the person which originally reports the issue. Issue templates are a band-aid for the problem in general - if the user has at least a fundamental grasp of the kind of detail that the developer is expecting, I think a considerable impact can be achieved by incorporating it in this course.

for example, things such as:

• software version (not just you need to tell us, but why you need to tell us accurately -- surprisingly often neglected)
• elaborating on the problem: what is your input and config? what do you expect to happen? (again, surprisingly often neglected)
• steps to reproduce
• a minimal example
• important: WHAT HAVE YOU ALREADY TRIED? More likely to be an actual issue (and help diagnosis) if the user can show that (and what) they have tried prior to reporting the issue.

I think it's better to explain, in no uncertain terms,. WHY this information is so essential in a bug report, rather than simply listing 'what makes a good bug report, in order to avoid delay frustration on both sides.

Perhaps a sensible template to start with is the one on StackOverflow: https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask

I think that this would make a great addition to the course.