[HN Gopher] Ask stupid questions as a new software developer
___________________________________________________________________
Ask stupid questions as a new software developer
Author : kazperson
Score : 89 points
Date : 2021-11-07 17:14 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nikitakazakov.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nikitakazakov.com)
| derekjdanserl wrote:
| The job interview hell that we go through these days selects for
| people unwilling to do this.
| eropple wrote:
| It's true. People are visibly surprised at times when you shrug
| and say "no idea, but I can figure it out". It certainly helps
| if you can buttress it with analogies to other problems and
| tools, but not knowing things is fine and normal.
|
| I don't work places where that attitude isn't welcomed, and you
| shouldn't either.
| lazyant wrote:
| Just in case, recently in HN: https://danluu.com/look-stupid/
| bootloop wrote:
| Sure. But I would expect you to go through the first page of
| Google results first.
| bbarn wrote:
| Just ask questions, period. Something seem strange about the
| stack you just inherited? Ask why. Sometimes simply raising the
| question can be a catalyst for change.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| Communicating effectively is way more complicated than applying a
| 4 paragraphs long blanket advice.
| ryanianian wrote:
| It is. But please elaborate.
| treis wrote:
| I'm going to take the contrarian perspective from this. People
| absolutely will judge you for stupid questions and you need to be
| careful about asking them. Dip your toe in the water and see what
| happens.
|
| Actually, that's good advice for all of these types of articles
| (and it seems like we've had a bull run on 'ask dumb questions').
| Organizations are fucked up. Bosses/People are assholes. The
| wildebeast that goes first in the river takes the biggest risk of
| being eaten. Watch and learn before taking the leap.
| tomrod wrote:
| It can help if you're the mutant wildebeest with skin so thick
| that no croc can take it down.
|
| If you're the unfirable 10X rockstar LC awesome dev, this is
| how you make your org healthier.
| geofft wrote:
| You're not wrong, but, the faster you get out of that
| organization (or into a healthier part of that organization),
| the faster you'll start growing. An organization that penalizes
| asking questions is almost certainly broken in other ways that
| you'll discover soon, _and_ you 'll be in a worse position when
| you're interviewing for your next job.
| treis wrote:
| >, the faster you get out of that organization (or into a
| healthier part of that organization)
|
| But you're not going to get there if you're being death
| rolled by a crocodile in the middle of the river. My point is
| not to not ask stupid questions. My point is to dip your toe
| in the water and see what happens instead of cannon-balling.
| dtx1 wrote:
| I have found that asking "stupid questions" in the form of "I
| don't understand X, can you explain it to me?" is very valuable,
| as it forces people to agree on a common interpretation of an
| issue. In fact, most technical discussions are more about gaining
| a common understanding of an issue than about a solution. Once
| everyone has the same understanding of a given problem, the
| solution space becomes much clearer.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I ask "stupid" questions all the time, and I haven't been a new
| software developer for decades.
|
| Don't like it? Think I'm stupid? Go ahead. It's a free country.
| Think what you like. Whatever creams your twinkie.
|
| I'd say an important attached property of this "rule," is "Don't
| treat _any_ question as 'stupid.'"
|
| That way, we don't become what is known in the vernacular as
| "assholes."
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Don't treat any question as 'stupid.'"
|
| There definitely are stupid question that shows the person
| asking them was too lazy to think for a moment or at least
| google it. If people do not value my time, they are not worthy
| of it.
|
| But yes, it is important to seperate that from beginners
| question, as it is easy to forget, that we all started as
| beginners.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I'd say that a _significant_ number of folks in this industry
| seem to have severe self-image issues, and get some kind of
| balm from attacking /looking down on the work of others.
|
| As the recipient of a great deal of this behavior (see "I ask
| 'stupid' questions all the time," above), I think that it's
| better to say "this is why we can't have nice things," and
| simply cover all my bases by not attacking others.
|
| It's quite easy to say "no," in a way that does not cast
| shame or judgment onto others.
|
| If someone asks a question I can easily answer; even if they
| are being "lazy" (which I believe to be an overused, and
| misunderstood word), or even trolling, I answer it in good
| faith. If I don't have time, I say "I'm not able to answer
| that, right now," or simply ignore it, if I can do so, in a
| way that does not come across as judgmental.
|
| Easy-peasey. That way, I don't make enemies quickly. If
| someone perceives me as a "soft touch," or as an easy place
| to get answers, that's not actually a bad thing.
|
| As we get older, we discover that making friends, and not
| making enemies, is a lot more important than being perceived
| as "superior." Relationships may be the single most valuable
| artifact of our lives.
|
| I'm a good friend to have. I always find it fascinating, how
| so many folks start our relationship out by quickly judging
| me (negatively, of course), and attacking me. They've never
| had any contact with me before, and _their very first
| interaction_ with me is an insult or attack (quite
| frequently, landing wide of the mark). I consider that to be
| rather self-destructive behavior.
|
| I try not to do that to others.
| Igelau wrote:
| > There definitely are stupid question that shows the person
| asking them was too lazy to think for a moment or at least
| google it.
|
| Even this is rare. If you're getting too many "now what? now
| what?" questions in a row when the answer is literally right
| there, yeah, that's annoying. So much of the time I find it's
| just one of those things where people's cognition works
| completely differently. They might have thought really hard
| about it but were barking up the wrong tree. Or they might
| not have even known what the right search terms were for the
| problem.
|
| How many times have you searched for something and the
| highest ranking result is from StackOverflow, but the thread
| says "this question is closed because it's a duplicate" or
| "this question is closed because it's a tools question and
| off-topic".
|
| These are obviously valuable questions as indicated by their
| search ranking, but the collective acts like they are dumb
| questions or like someone isn't paying attention.
| cupcake-unicorn wrote:
| As a young female software developer, I was told to ask _less_
| questions. This led to situations where I 'd be stuck hours on
| end due to things like backend/config changes that no one told me
| about and I wouldn't have known. So just a tip that this advice
| doesn't necessarily hold if you're a minority software developer.
| Later I was told that I was a good dev but my confidence wasn't
| good enough. Hmm, wonder what could have contributed to that? :/
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > As a young female software developer, I was told to ask less
| questions
|
| Someone at work explicitly told you that because you are a
| female, you should ask less questions because of the sex you
| are born with? was it a coworker on the same level as yours or
| a manager?
|
| Or is it a policy at your business not to practice onboarding?
| If it's the former, it's a clear cut case of sexism and I
| suggest you report the employee who made that comment to your
| hierarchy.
| cupcake-unicorn wrote:
| Most cases of sexism aren't "clear cut". If you're the only
| woman in the office, it can be hard to figure out what's
| going on. Believe me that you try to explain certain things
| away and don't want to go to sexism as a first choice or a
| choice at all. But when you're a year in and you still notice
| there are very real differences in the way you're treated
| versus your male colleagues you have to start accepting that
| sexism sadly may have something to do with it.
|
| It's not the kind of thing that you can just talk to your
| manager about when it's that subtle. For example there was
| increased hostility to me versus the other employees over
| Slack and Pull requests. If I mentioned that it would be
| invalidated/ignored/I'd be told to toughen up. And as I said,
| the company made their main problem with me in the end
| "You're such a great dev, but you don't have confidence! Own
| it!" at the same time while fostering an environment where
| any concerns about the way I was treated, help I needed as a
| junior dev, etc was not taken seriously.
|
| That job was by far the worst example and when I was overseas
| in Berlin that team was much healthier, but you still run
| into everyday stuff like, "Oh I won't use that kind of
| language because a lady is present".
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > Most cases of sexism aren't "clear cut". If you're the
| only woman in the office, it can be hard to figure out
| what's going on. Believe me that you try to explain certain
| things away and don't want to go to sexism as a first
| choice or a choice at all. But when you're a year in and
| you still notice there are very real differences in the way
| you're treated versus your male colleagues you have to
| start accepting that sexism sadly may have something to do
| with it.
|
| This one is a clear-cut case of sexism. If you allow
| yourself to be discriminated against by a co-worker, why
| would that co-worker stop being sexist toward you or other
| women employees? at first place. Report them.
|
| If the hierarchy does nothing about it, then it's a sexist
| workplace and it should be called out for it, publicly.
| Time isn't for inaction anymore, inaction is what helps
| perpetuate and normalize that behavior.
|
| You said you had access to a group of female developers for
| support, did you talk about that incident to your group?
| Did they tell you to shut up about it? I think not.
|
| You rightfully said females are a minority, well consider
| the positive impact of reporting workplace sexism, for
| females as a class.
| organsnyder wrote:
| It's easy to give this "advice" when you're not knee-deep
| in this person's situation (I'm not in it, either). It's
| much harder to practice it when you're just trying to
| keep your head above water.
| pm90 wrote:
| Sorry to hear that. I feel privileged to have had the chance to
| ask questions quite liberally and it has been an important
| avenue for learning in my career. I recognize that is a
| privilege; I hope that it does not remain that way, that
| everyone has access to this way of learning.
| cupcake-unicorn wrote:
| I think most workplaces would benefit better from having
| junior devs pair with other devs and cultivating this kind of
| thing but my experience was that most startups were very
| frustrated with junior/midlevel devs and just wanted to fill
| their ranks with fullstack "rockstars". I don't know if
| things have changed but it just seemed like there were rarely
| true junior or mid level dev positions, and in my case even
| when there were, they company would come back in about 6
| months in and admit they didn't really have the resources for
| someone to do the kind of pairing/mentoring needed for
| someone in a junior role :/
|
| There's a female oriented code bootcamp where I live but I
| wasn't allowed in because I was "overqualified". I didn't
| really fit anywhere. Tech culture got more and more
| alienating to me so I'm not in that industry anymore. My best
| job was overseas in Berlin but I did see that that kind of
| "tech bro" culture seeping into workplaces there as well.
| sigg3 wrote:
| Knowing some procedural bash and being a certified Associate
| python programmer at python institute, I still don't recognize
| OOP patterns unless explicitly stated. I just got hired in a
| golang centric org.
|
| How can I train / learn recognizing and employing OOP patterns or
| industry standards so I don't have to bother colleagues with my
| ignorance? (No CS background, education in the humanities.)
| n8cpdx wrote:
| I see these articles all the time and I don't really get it. Are
| people walking around just terrified of looking stupid? When did
| that become a cultural value? Where is that being taught and
| reinforced?
|
| I just don't get the need for this article. Asking questions is
| foundational. It would be like seeing a flurry of "Don't be
| afraid that drinking water at work will make you look dehydrated"
| articles. Or "Just drink coffee from time to time." Or "Use the
| restroom when needed." It's just weird to me that people need to
| be told this, and it makes me suspect there is an underlying
| failure of culture or education at play.
|
| Would anyone who has had this experience be willing to share
| insight?
| devwastaken wrote:
| It is being taught and reinforced by bad attitudes in tech.
| I've spent time with plenty of narcissistic engineers that will
| treat you as being stupid. Sometimes those people are very
| overconfident and get a lot of social influence, leading to
| them (mis)managing other people.
|
| Power and politics at the macro level.
| ryanianian wrote:
| The article is right but its ambitions are too low. Everyone
| needs to ask helpful questions in the right way and at the right
| time. This is simple but not easy.
|
| I'm a staff-level engineer at a well-known tech company. One of
| the most important things I do is ask simple/"dumb" questions of
| other very smart but more junior engineers.
|
| I try to ask questions they haven't considered or explained well.
| I ask questions that poke at the assumptions and basic tenets of
| the problem. I ask honest, non-leading questions to which I
| genuinely want to know the answer. Other kinds of feedback are
| not appropriate questions.
|
| My Kubernetes and other SRE-style knowledge is limited, so I ask
| dumb questions there. Sometimes the response is "uhm this is a
| basic concept" but every time I've done that other engs in the
| room tell me they were afraid of asking the very same questions.
| (And tbh many times the answers point to a lack of understanding
| of fundamentals.)
|
| So the key is to be genuinely curious and optimistic, try to
| guide others to ask and answer similar questions on their own and
| present them at the right level of detail in their
| presentation/documentation. And to encourage all engineers
| regardless of seniority to do the same.
|
| A key point is doing this at the right times. During a 10-person
| meeting with directors is not the right time to ask questions
| that could send things back to the drawing-board. Such meetings
| are ceremony.
|
| If there are big questions about feasibility etc at a 10-person
| director-level meeting, you need to go into backroom fire-
| fighting mode to figure out how to save the project and let
| everyone save face. In the moment is almost never the right time.
|
| If there are tech problems or questions, ask the small group of
| people who did the thinking, and ask them in a low-stakes
| setting. All questions must be asked in good-faith to gain any
| level of respect and overall progress for everyone involved.
|
| Questions are NOT an opportunity to show off, to politick, or to
| start lots of little fires that everyone must put out before
| proceeding.
|
| This is half the art of questions at senior and staff levels:
| when to ask them, to whom to ask them, and how to help guide the
| action based on the answer even if you disagree with the
| conclusions.
| aranchelk wrote:
| Co-opting an idea from Daniel Dennett: try to always have a
| junior developer around so when senior engineers are talking past
| each other and no one's pride will allow them to ask the basic
| questions that could clear things up, there's someone there to do
| it.
| kazperson wrote:
| You make a good point. I noticed that the developers I enjoy
| working with are those that are vulnerable about their
| knowledge gaps. It's just easy to toss ideas around with
| someone that is open and willing to show they don't know
| everything.
| mceachen wrote:
| Please ask me any question, regardless of how dumb you think it
| will make you look, after you've spent at least 5 minutes trying
| to answer it yourself.
|
| Bonus Points if you summarize your quick research efforts.
|
| Extra Bonus Points if this leads to more questions.
|
| (Caveat emptor: _many_ engineers are decidedly antisocial, but if
| you show that you did prior research before asking, you're
| showing to them that you value their time as much as your own,
| and there's a better chance that they will be receptive to
| collaboration.)
| stavros wrote:
| To second this, please ask me any question but help me
| understand the context first. I've written up a short guide on
| that:
|
| https://www.stavros.io/posts/how-to-ask-for-help/
|
| Giving the other person all the relevant details helps you both
| immensely.
| jayd16 wrote:
| The only stupid question is one where I can type it verbatim
| into Google and get the result for you.
|
| Even then, if you did that but want more context, that's not
| stupid.
|
| I'm still surprised how much I need to Google for others...
| ackfoobar wrote:
| I've read "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way" by ESR when I
| was young. It had a rather big impact on me.
|
| Of course now I realize people who need the message won't read
| it.
| [deleted]
| devwastaken wrote:
| What is the best method for students to get a summer
| internship? What kind of things does hiring want to see from a
| student? What format of resumes are the most appealing? How do
| you negotiate costs and ensure the student can actually afford
| to live that work?
|
| I've asked a number of people, including uni admins, and none
| of them are based on words from the people whom actually hire.
| Especially in software where resumes and hiring are worlds
| apart from accounting.
| Mandatum wrote:
| http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
|
| Mandatory reading for all new juniors. Better yet, in teams
| that rely on heavy domain knowledge sharing and complex
| problems or designs, annual review by everyone.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Bonus Points if you summarize your quick research efforts.
|
| Careful with that step: you might answer your own question.
| eropple wrote:
| The best rubber duck debugging is when the rubber duck solves
| it before you hit enter.
| onion2k wrote:
| Very often you won't get that upfront research because juniors
| don't have the knowledge necessary to even start looking for
| themselves. Because you expect them to come to you with
| evidence before they ask you, your devs will just avoid asking
| you and spend hours wasting time instead. Any minimum
| requirements are a barrier. Barriers are bad for learning.
|
| You need to welcome questions even from people who have
| apparently done no research at all, or juniors will always
| worry that you'll accuse them of not doing the "necessary" work
| up front. If you're kind and approachable, and you don't tell
| people off for failing to meet your minimum requirements, you
| can guide them to finding it themselves.
| junon wrote:
| > Very often you won't get that upfront research because
| juniors don't have the knowledge necessary to even start
| looking for themselves.
|
| Advice for junior devs: Asking "how do I even go about
| searching for this?" is also a perfect acceptable question.
| Another format: "how do YOU generally research things?"
| gregkerzhner wrote:
| I would argue that those "hours wasting time" looking for an
| answer yourself before you give up and ask someone more
| senior aren't a waste - they are an invaluable part of
| becoming senior yourself.
|
| As a senior engineer, you will often spend hours and days
| stuck trying to solve hard problems with noone else to ask,
| and having the grit, determination and creativity to do this
| is one of the greatest skills you can teach an engineer.
| Having barriers and friction in the name of this self
| sufficiency is totally fine and likely beneficial to the
| development of a junior dev.
| mceachen wrote:
| Agreed, it's a tricky balance.
|
| To be clear, I don't believe I've ever said these "rules"
| aloud.
|
| When someone comes to me for help, the first step is for them
| to explain the problem. The next step is for them to discuss
| what solutions they're considering. If they're at a loss, I
| open a browser window and ask them what they think a good
| query would look like, and pattern behavior that helps them
| in the future, and we work off of that for a bit before I may
| suggest actual implementation strategies, and walk through
| pros and cons of each approach.
| inconfident2021 wrote:
| It's difficult for starting people to ask out of school because
| their curiosity has been butchered by ego-maniac professors.
| For every 1 good professor, there are 1000 ego maniacs
| (professor + their TAs).
| duxup wrote:
| I was a non coding tech support nobody at one point in my
| career.
|
| After a while I started to have specific tickets assigned to me
| from other techs. And then emails with people of the chain
| asking me to take a ticket.
|
| Later I realized was that the engineering team several layers
| separated from me really liked my documentation and working
| with me.
|
| I wrote accurate summaries. I was honest about what I did and
| didn't know. I remembered what they told me to ask customers
| from other tickets. The engineering team loved it.
|
| The honest part was a big deal. In a place where folks tried to
| show how smart they were people were reluctant to admit they
| didn't know something or didn't ask the customer, it caused all
| sorts of issues that engineering hated.
| sseagull wrote:
| Maybe? True beginners often lack the context to understand
| which of the multitude of answers the internet provides is the
| best for their situation.
|
| Or they think they understand the answer, but really don't, and
| end up making a mess.
|
| Basically, true beginners do best with a mentor.
| erikerikson wrote:
| s/antisocial/asocial/
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Bingo - just constantly asking relatively trivial beginner's
| questions will quickly make any busy senior lose patience. Key
| is to be somewhere in the middle - trying to understand, but
| needing that extra glue to make sense of the facts.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Collect your questions, research them yourselves, come with
| the bundle.. when im obviously not concentrated or it really
| holds up your work.
| afarrell wrote:
| How does a junior engineer working remotely tell if you are
| obviously not concentrating?
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| By using async communication.
|
| Write down where they were, move on with something else
| until they get a reply.
| brna wrote:
| At the end or start of the work day works best for me.
|
| After lunch break or meetings is also great.
| moffkalast wrote:
| This is a problem during lectures. If you ask immediately you
| may end up looking entirely stupid, but if you spend a few
| minutes thinking about it the topic already moves from it so
| you can no longer ask lol.
| brundolf wrote:
| A couple jobs ago we had a dedicated "dumb-questions" slack
| channel that only junior-mid devs were invited to; no managers,
| so there won't be any fear of judgement. Often the juniors would
| end up answering each other's questions. Another reason it worked
| well was that, being a group channel, you didn't have to worry
| about bothering a specific person who might be busy.
| aigo wrote:
| I started something similar on my team recently, the chat group
| is called 'does anyone know' as that's how almost all of these
| questions begin
| strictnein wrote:
| Just as important: ask "stupid" questions if you're a Lead or a
| Principal or whatever. First, you don't know everything, no one
| does. Second, it makes it easier for the Junior devs to ask their
| questions.
| lelandfe wrote:
| I worked for a lead early on in my career who changed my life
| through observing his management style
|
| One thing he did: ask questions he already knew the answers to
| on big meetings
|
| I initially thought he had a bad memory. Instead, he was
| thinking like a new hire. What would a college hire want
| explained right now?
|
| And you're also right, once someone with sway has asked a
| question - and been met with an honest answer - it makes it
| easier for others to do the same
| noirbot wrote:
| The one difficulty with this, and one I've had trouble with
| before, is when this strays into me, as a team member, being
| unsure if we're intentionally trying to look dumb/make
| something look harder than it is to another party in the
| company as part of some sort of internal politics.
|
| Even less deviously, it can certainly throw a wrench into a
| meeting to have to explain some things to the least
| experienced person in the room, even if it's by proxy of
| someone more senior. I've had plenty of planning meetings get
| derailed because someone asked a lot of basic questions that
| 3/4 or more of the participants surely knew the answer to.
| Sometimes there's just value in following up later with your
| senior engineer about something you didn't understand instead
| of holding up a number of other people to get the explanation
| right now.
| sawmurai wrote:
| We had a rule during apprenticeship that we would would ask
| questions if we saw that a fellow was struggling to comprehend
| - and was too slow / shy to ask on their own, even if we
| already understood. We would ask these questions as stupidly as
| possible (within reasonable boundaries, of course) to make the
| teacher not just repeat what they already said but to make them
| find another way to explain it. That's when I learned that ego
| has no place in learning.
| dragonsky67 wrote:
| One of the things that becomes obvious as I gain experience, is
| that I actually think I know less.
|
| As I gain experience the number of things that I could know
| something about seems to increase at an exponential rate, but my
| knowledge still only increases at the same rate... So as time
| goes on, the level of knowledge of all things decreases.
|
| So, I ask stupid questions all the time, because I know that
| something may be related to what we are working on, but I don't
| have the knowledge to be able to ask smart questions. At this
| point, any question can help you get to how the subject area can
| help.
|
| Don't worry about looking stupid asking questions. Anybody in
| this game who claims they know everything lying, there is just
| too much to know.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| To be honest, ask stupid questions even as an experienced
| developer!
|
| We all have brain farts, and don't know everything!
| brtmr wrote:
| Absolutely. There is no magic point in your career where you
| know everything. Plus, it fosters a culture of asking. And
| often you're not the only one in the room who doesn't know.
| Often asking a stupid question like ,,I don't know that word -
| Can you explain?" will prompt further questions from other
| people.
| zz865 wrote:
| True but dont interrupt me every 60 minutes with another question
| that you can figure out yourself.
| schipplock wrote:
| s/new//
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