1 00:00:00,030 --> 00:00:04,020 Hey, hi again and welcome to yet another lecture. In this lecture I'll show you 2 00:00:04,020 --> 00:00:09,090 how to ask a good programming question. So I mentioned in the previous lecture 3 00:00:09,090 --> 00:00:14,089 asking a good programming question is very important to get a good answer and 4 00:00:14,089 --> 00:00:21,109 let me first show you what a bad programming question. For instance 5 00:00:21,109 --> 00:00:28,410 I'm going to click on ask question and here is the title of a question. A bad 6 00:00:28,410 --> 00:00:33,420 programming question would have a very generic title like that. Here is the body 7 00:00:33,420 --> 00:00:36,960 of the question where you have to describe your question in detail. 8 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:48,239 Some people do they just say: I got an error when trying to two numbers and they 9 00:00:48,239 --> 00:00:55,350 just post the question. A better question would be to include the error, the code 10 00:00:55,350 --> 00:01:00,050 there that you executed like that. However that is also not enough because 11 00:01:04,140 --> 00:01:09,810 you also need to show the error message. So let me delete this, and a good program 12 00:01:09,810 --> 00:01:14,509 in question would be� We're talking about questions that have an error, 13 00:01:14,509 --> 00:01:20,820 questions that talk about an error that you got in your code. So this is your 14 00:01:20,820 --> 00:01:27,780 code. A good title would be to include the error message, so that one would be a 15 00:01:27,780 --> 00:01:32,070 good fit. If it's a very long message then you can also you can choose to 16 00:01:32,070 --> 00:01:37,829 include only the name of the error without that and then a good question woulb 17 00:01:37,829 --> 00:01:50,460 be: Hi, I run the following code and expected to get division in the last print 18 00:01:50,460 --> 00:01:55,520 statement, but I got an error. Here is my code, so you put the code 19 00:02:01,030 --> 00:02:08,590 there, your entire script. Don't worry if your question is long. It's better to 20 00:02:08,590 --> 00:02:19,950 be long than to be incomplete and here is the error. Here make sure to include 21 00:02:19,950 --> 00:02:28,510 your entire errors trace back including the output as well. So from this 22 00:02:28,510 --> 00:02:34,209 line of the command line up to the next line so this entire thing goes to your 23 00:02:34,209 --> 00:02:43,750 question. Just copy it. Don't worry if it's long. Can you help? So that'd be a good 24 00:02:43,750 --> 00:02:48,099 programming question. Now this is still missing something very important and 25 00:02:48,099 --> 00:02:52,989 that is the highlighting of the code. You need to select the code and click on 26 00:02:52,989 --> 00:03:07,870 this icon here. The error as well. And let me pose the question. External links must 27 00:03:07,870 --> 00:03:14,560 provide free educational content, just click on proceed and here is the question. 28 00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:18,430 Here is how it looks like on the other end. So this question has 29 00:03:18,430 --> 00:03:21,940 four good elements that make it a good question. 30 00:03:21,940 --> 00:03:29,590 The first element is that the poster is mentioning what he or she expected to 31 00:03:29,590 --> 00:03:36,250 get as output from the script that here they were running so it says I was 32 00:03:36,250 --> 00:03:39,760 expecting to get the division in the last print statement which is this one 33 00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:44,620 here, but I got an error so the first thing is you need to include the 34 00:03:44,620 --> 00:03:48,250 expected output, you need to explain what you were expecting because 35 00:03:48,250 --> 00:03:53,440 otherwise if you don't explain what you were expecting the other person who 36 00:03:53,440 --> 00:04:01,780 wants to help you doesn't know the goal of your code or of your questions so it 37 00:04:01,780 --> 00:04:05,890 doesn't know how to help you to reach to that goal. So expected output is the first 38 00:04:05,890 --> 00:04:08,830 thing. The second thing is you need to include your entire code 39 00:04:08,830 --> 00:04:15,970 and make sure that you include your code as text. It's best to use text, 40 00:04:15,970 --> 00:04:22,360 rather than screenshots because text, the person who wants to help you can copy 41 00:04:22,360 --> 00:04:29,500 your code and run it all their Python interpreter, but if you includes 42 00:04:29,500 --> 00:04:35,940 screenshots they are images and it's hard for other people to try out your code 43 00:04:35,940 --> 00:04:40,060 If you ask this on stackoverflow your 44 00:04:40,060 --> 00:04:44,530 question would get closed because if you ask it or we're using a screenshot 45 00:04:44,530 --> 00:04:49,660 rather than the text version of your code, the question will get closed 46 00:04:49,660 --> 00:04:55,620 because there are very strong rules in stackoverflow to have a high-quality 47 00:04:55,620 --> 00:05:01,690 question and answer site. So that's that second element. The third element is you 48 00:05:01,690 --> 00:05:09,730 need to include your entire screenshot, entire error traceback, sorry, so from the 49 00:05:09,730 --> 00:05:14,770 beginning up to the end. So that was the third element, and the last element, the 50 00:05:14,770 --> 00:05:19,870 fourth element is you need to highlight your code just like that. You see this is 51 00:05:19,870 --> 00:05:27,400 much more visible and easier for others to troubleshoot. So the course interface 52 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:32,440 has that function there that you can highlight your code. On stackoverflow 53 00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:37,169 you also have that capability so just go to ask question, you write your code here, 54 00:05:37,169 --> 00:05:46,780 highlight it and then use these curly brackets. Yeah, that's it. If you ask a 55 00:05:46,780 --> 00:05:51,190 good questions the odds are that you're going to get a good answer as well. So I 56 00:05:51,190 --> 00:05:55,810 hope this makes sense and I hope I showed you something that you didn't know and 57 00:05:55,810 --> 00:06:00,000 I'll talk to you later. See you!