Questions tagged [asking-questions]
This tag is for questions specifically about the process of asking questions on Code Review; e.g. how to ask, whether specific questions are appropriate, etc.
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How to get the best value out of Code Review - Asking Questions
I have a project I am working on, and I would like some, or all of it
reviewed, how can I ask for this review on Code Review in a way that
produces the best possible value?
This is not about a ...
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Checklist for how to write a good Code Review question
Many questions of new users lack some parts or common style of the site. There already are some meta questions that aggregate tips on this issue but letting new users walk through all of them is ...
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What would Clippy say?
We have a question closure rate of ~30%. That's a significant burden on moderators and users who help triage the questions.
While some questions can indeed be very difficult to triage, there are ...
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How to post a follow-up question?
Sometimes I stumble upon follow-up questions, where code is being posted again after having gone through a review (or two).
Examples of possible sets of follow up questions:
Find missing numbers - ...
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Is code ever clean enough? - Can there be too many follow-up questions?
Some posts can at times have several follow-up questions, sometimes a couple of follow-up questions on the same day.
All this brings us to the question of Can there be too many follow-up questions?
...
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How well is "malicious" code accepted here?
I recently asked a question that could possibly be used for malicious purposes. I tried to whittle the code down as much as I could to a "base" program so that a script kiddie wouldn't stumble across ...
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Why is hypothetical example code off-topic for Code Review?
As stated in the Help Center, one of the criteria for a question to be on topic is:
Is it actual code from a project rather than pseudo-code or hypothetical code?
Details matter! In order to give ...
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What makes a good question? [duplicate]
I think it would be a good idea to compile a list of guidelines on how to ask good question. What information should be present, how to structure it, etc.
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Code Review Clippy
A while back, y'all asked for some warnings for folks asking questions here: What would Clippy say?
After thorough review (mostly by animuson & JNat), we've determined that the following warnings ...
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Is asking for a review of boiler plate for a minimal repro okay?
For asking and answering questions on Stack Overflow with certain frameworks and libraries I have boilerplate lying around for a minimal repro. I would be interested in getting feedback on my WCF ...
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Must the code be "clean"?
I have working code that I want reviewed, but it is not clean. It made the correct output but there are comments and bad names. Is it not ready for review, and must the code be clean to get reviewed ...
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Do one-liners and other narrowed-down code qualify for a code review?
Every once in a blue moon, a question gets posted (often as a new user's first post) where the OP is asking a quite specific question about very minimalistic code, for example:
...
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Can we rename "Ask question"?
A recent "question" (will probably be deleted when you click it) made me realize: The "Ask Question" label on Code Review can be a bit misleading here.
Code Review questions are expected to contain ...
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Can I use CR as an environment to foster an open source project?
Let's suppose that I have a personal project which I think might interest more people, and given my low position in the learning curve, want to make it open source.
Besides posting pieces of code in ...
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Does preventing exact duplicate titles makes sense here?
When editing the title of Multiple FizzBuzz from a file, I first wanted to make the title "FizzBuzz from a file" but that exact title already exists which showed an error message:
Considering our ...
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Is it okay to add someone else's linked code to the question?
Some questions link to the code they want reviewed, which is against site policy. Should one edit the code into the question in these cases?
The problem I see is that all content on Stack Exchange ...
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Is it too easy to post your code for review?
Our current situation:
We are getting 34 questions per day
We are getting more and more unanswered questions
We are still on a mission
I feel that we multiple times per day get questions that are a ...
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Found a serious bug in my question after posting it
What is the correct way to go after I found a bug in a question that I posted?
Shall I delete the question, vote to close it or flag it as off-topic?
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Help spot deficiencies in our Help Center
Regular participants will be familiar with procedures and practices on Code Review. For example, we have rules against
asking hypothetical questions
appending to or modifying the question after ...
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Can we ask reviewers to *not* focus on something?
Our Help Center says:
Do I want feedback about any or all facets of the code?
However, sometimes we might have some code that we are aware has flaws in it, or we would just for one reason or ...
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Should I include my testing code?
I recently posted a large chunk of code. It feels like a tall order to code review.
I've written a bunch of tests to test my code. Would those tests be useful to the reviewer?
I'm not looking for ...
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Should we censor rude language in comments/strings of posted code?
What I’m referring to mostly started with this edit where strong language that possibly originated as a joke from the OP was flagged as rude and removed from the question entirely.
The code in the ...
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Should I leave in documentation in code for review?
I'm surprised I can't find this as a question already, so I'm taking a shot and posting...
I document my code. I don't not document my code before considering myself done for the day. Most of the ...
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How much research effort is expected when posting a Code Review question?
On Stack Overflow, the community consensus for research before asking is:
A lot. An absurd amount. More than you think you are capable of. In fact, asking a question on Stack Overflow is the ...
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Posting a multi-language project
I have a small project for which I would like to ask for a code review soon. However, it integrates multiple languages (specifically, Python + jQuery and the rest of the browser stack).
Can such a ...
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Reviewing AI based on how it performs
On Code Golf is is common to see a king-of-the-hill question where you have to implement an AI based on the rules given in the question.
So then I got to thinking - "If I developed an AI for one of ...
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Let's update the modal for new askers
The Issue
There are many posts on CR that are off-topic for various reasons... Sometimes 10-20 per day! Apparently many users don't read/heed the text on the right side (i.e. "Your question must ...
Sᴀᴍ OnᴇᴌᴀMod
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I've observed many toy/homework questions
It appears that many review requests are for toy or homework examples (e.g. FizzBuzz).
Is this observation correct or am I mistaken? If observed correctly, I have the following questions:
Is it good ...
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Reviews of code not stored here
This question is inspired by a question I just saw: Review website done after one week of learning HTML and CSS
How do we want to handle these issues? We wanted to avoid pastebins since having the ...
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Should comparisons of code snippets be closed as "not seeking a code review"?
I've been seeing some "A vs. B" questions for a while, and I'm not sure if they're considered on-topic for this site. Many of these questions are not asking for a review, but which code snippet is ...
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Should I be asking shorter questions?
Background
I've been meaning to ask this for a while, and this meta question prompted me to finally write something. I've read the answers to that question and the ones to which it links, and the ...
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May I ask a question about legacy code, where I don't intend to implement advice given by CR?
One of the checklist items for an on-topic question is:
Do I want feedback about any or all facets of the code?
I have considered posting old code to CR which I think would spur useful discussion ...
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Should a post with no specific question(s) imply a general review?
I've started thinking about this more after seeing this question.
I'm sometimes tempted to vote such questions as not clear what you're asking, but I also feel that it's not quite needed for this ...
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Does my code example need to be compilable/runnable?
I'm thinking of posting a question here, but am unsure how I should do so. The question is about comparing the performance of a piece of pure Python code vs a hybrid Python/C++ piece of code, glued ...
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Should [programming-challenge] questions require a summary of the challenge?
Project Euler has been offline for several days, after the site was hacked.
Problem is, a large number of our questions relate to Project Euler, and many of them do not contain any description of the ...
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Can we require questions to have at least one language tag?
We are getting a low amount of questions every day which are not tagged with a language. I believe we can could prevent this if we make adding a language required.
Is there a possibility to add this ...
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Are we allowed to ask questions about just regular expressions?
Are we allowed to ask questions just about regular expressions?
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Will a question be downvoted for poor code?
I am kind of new to Code Review SE (I only have two questions), and am trying to understand the site. I recently came across this question with three downvotes.
For the most part, It seems that it is ...
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Stop mentioning major concerns in title
On the Ask a Question page, users are currently faced with this:
state the purpose of your code, and mention any major concerns.
I have recently started commenting on many questions with this ...
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Is this question popularity normal?
I was on Code Review, asking a question for the first time. I thought my question was good, but it never crossed my mind that it would become popular enough to make it to the hot list. It did, and I ...
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Tagging: C++ vs C
I've noticed more and more questions recently having their posts tagged with C++ both c++ and c. A couple examples that I have recently handled myself:
Karatsuba C++ implementation
Passing objects ...
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Questions about documentation
Are questions about writing/improving documentation appropriate and on-topic for Code Review? And if so, should there be a documentation tag?
Let's be clear--I'm not talking about questions seeking ...
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Hide the "describe what you've tried" bullet (new askers' modal)
Our new asker's modal has the three bullets:
Summarize the problem
Provide details and any research
When appropriate, describe what you've tried
We are able to remove the third bullet point (see &...
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If in doubt, post the question on Meta first?
Not for lack of trying, I get downvotes on some questions. And on those questions I nevertheless often get answers. So if I try to delete the question to approach it differently, I get the warning ...
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Is it okay to post the same Project Euler solution, using the same language, but with a different implementation?
I have come up with my very own Clojure implementation of the solution for Project Euler #2, but I see that someone already solved this particular problem using Clojure and put it up here for code ...
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Questions that are "I did this, it seems to work, how did I do?"
I've been an active member of StackOverflow for more than two years, and have a decent amount of rep on some other SE sites like Programmers, Code Golf and here. But the one type of question that ...
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"How secure..." questions - Code Review vs. Information Security SE
Recently I have seen a whole lot of questions in the form of "How secure is this hashing", "How secure is my keygen?", "How secure is my form?".
We do have a quite popular security tag, with 159 ...
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Small portion of reviewable code isn't mine, but credited
I recently asked this question. I looked around, but it doesn't look like my problem has been asked here:
A small (9 SLOC) portion of my code is an equation from a user on Stackoverflow. I credit the ...
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Policy regarding "flooding" Code Review with questions
There seem to be a few users which "flood" Code Review with questions recently (2 to 4 questions in rapid succession).
They often present relatively small pieces of code, allegedly from homework, ...
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Clarifying Code Review Scope
I just checked the How to Ask, What types of questions should I avoid asking? and What topics can I ask about here?, but I'm confused about the working code part.
Quoting from What topics can I ask ...
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