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Craft Overflow

How to Ask Questions or Ask for Help

First steps

Nothing irritates your coaches or peers more than being asked a question twice. Step one before you ask a question is to figure out if you should already know this. Check this repository (CraftOverflow), your notes (you should be keeping notes!), give a glance at the lecture materials, check other parts of your code.

You should ask yourself:

  • Should I already know this?
  • Is there class documentation about this?
  • Is there gem / library documentation about this?

If you do these steps and still need help, no problem! That's what we're here for.

How to formulate questions

When you ask a question, you need to provide context for your problem. "Why doesn't this work?" is not an appropriate question. Here are some things that help your teammates and coaches help you:

  • What test is failing?
  • What is the error message? (Remember to format your code as code - do not use plain text to show error messages)
  • What solutions have I already tried?
  • What do I think the problem is?
  • What do the logs say? (Once you start using databases)

If you provide some or all of these things when you formulate your question, we will be able to help you much quicker. A bonus is that often, when you gather this information, you come to the answer yourself - a win for everyone, as you just strengthened your troubleshooting skills and coaches can concentrate on difficult problems.

Don't be afraid to ask

This guide may seem like a way for coaches to get out of answering questions. That is not the case. We love problem solving! What we hate is answering questions we know we already answered, or questions about materials we know are written down in the class guide. Otherwise, please ask! We are also always willing to explain why we are doing something. If your question is a more philosophical one, we are all ears.

Getting your issue resolved

As a learner at Craft Academy,
In order to get unblocked,
I would like to have my problem reviewed by my peers and coaches.
  1. Identify the problem
  2. Create an issue
  3. Add a screenshot (if applicable)
  4. Add a short background to the issue
  5. Post the issue on Slack
  6. Wait for help from a coach or a fellow student
  7. Get unblocked

Why post on Craft Overflow?

The reasons for posting your questions here are:

  1. You will learn to formulate questions properly
  2. Senior students can read and help with answers
  3. This will create a library with issues and solutions
  4. The time searching for solutions will decrease
  5. We can track problems and improve the course documentation and materials.