[shriek]

Often the better answer is to just explain what's being asked by strongly encouraging them in the Z direction. Sometimes people just want to understand what's happening behind the scenes rather than just looking to solve for Y.

[berkes]

But that's a different question. And should be asked different.

"I'm trying to learn foo.js and attemt to do so by porting Tetris to it. I know foo.js is a terrible option for a game. So. How can I write to the canvas from foo.js?"

Is often answered properly, if only because to many it's a nice puzzle.

"How can I write to the canvas fro foo.js?" Is different in that it will attract a lot of people explaining that foo.js deliberately did not allow writing to the canvas, because Z"

[dan-0]

This is part of the problem. You know your constraints, other people do not, but like to assume they do. So you end up having to write a defensive argument about your problem rather than just plainly asking your real question.

This may help less experienced engineers not understanding their problem set, but for a more experienced engineer it's absolutely obnoxious to think of all the ways to defend my question so I don't have to deal with a rush of "oh but you should do this instead" answers getting up voted that don't actually answer my question, then asking to accept the answer.

To one set of users it's possibly helpful, to another it's useless if not also condescending, often condescending to both sets.

The bottom line is now, SO is so filled with these types of responses, I can't expect to get a very specific question answered, which is really the only reason I'd ask a question in the first place, so why use it?

There are plenty chat groups now via Slack and discord in my field where I can get much more direct answers. People aren't worried about getting down voted for a bad question, people aren't giving low quality answers to boost their points. So for me, SO is practically dead except for the occasional obscure error message that I can query for there.

[berkes]

> So you end up having to write a defensive argument about your problem rather than just plainly asking your real question.

My experience is that it's not so much a defensive argument, but context. My example was poor in that it could be misread as a defensive argument, sorry about that.

I meant it to show how adding some context changes the question. Because, in programming, it is all about context. AKA that "It Depends" meme.