[phillipuniverse]

I came across this a while back and is what I tell all the newer people that I mentor: https://blogs.akamai.com/2013/10/you-must-try-and-then-you-m...

Some people tend to miss the "You MUST try" part. I am more than happy to take a million questions of the "I tried x, y, z and saw a, b, and c; what's up?" variety. Where it gets frustrating are questions like "I haven't really tried to hunt this down yet, but how do I do <thing>?"

[shubhamjain]

Although, I agree that trying a lot before putting up your problem is an important aspect of a good developer, sometimes, after building up something, an experienced developer might suggest you a solution that makes you wonder if you should have asked for it before.

Like, a game developer, might be able to suggest "Object Pooling", "Dirty Bit" to optimize the game's performance, that a novice might not have much idea about.

[geoelectric]

IME, you're only really going to immediately get why it's a good idea if you've tried or built the less optimal way first. Otherwise they have to explain the bad way too in order to make their point.

Plus, honestly, you shouldn't be taking their advice as a given. Best practices are always contextual. They're -probably- going to be right, but knowing enough to be critical (even if just quietly, to yourself) is a huge plus.

[ConfuciusSay]

Yeah, exactly. This seems to be what the criticism was, but seemingly the OP morphed that into "never ask for help". No, you should ask for help after you've spent a reasonable amount of time and effort going down the obvious solution paths first.

The power of the human species is that we're able to share knowledge. The undisputed best way to learn is through human collaboration. There's a reason why we've designed our education system with teachers/instructors etc. instead of locking students in an empty room with a text book.

The idea that you learn better if you bang your head against a wall for days is just flat out wrong. Perhaps if the person you're learning from is in competition with you, or is a terrible teacher, or doesn't like you, or is in a company culture that is against collaboration, but if you have a competent instructor, learning via collaboration is the undisputed best way to learn. That teacher can (and should) explain to you all the dead-end paths that you would have banged your head against yourself, in a matter of minutes, and you'll get all the same benefits out of it as if you had done it yourself.

[zzalpha]

Woah woah woah.

Moderation?

Are you mad?!

Fortunately, unlike the original suggestion, I think this article is actually a bit more fair, even if the headline is still click-baity.

Is resilience good? Of course!

Should you go for help every time you encounter a challenge? No, that'd be silly.

But never ever asking for help is still terrible advice.

Fortunately I don't think that's what the author is actually advocating, instead advising the obvious: don't use your co-workers as a crutch, but certainly use them as a support group when you're truly stymied.

But, of course, that's just common sense, and common sense doesn't a click-baity blog post make. ;)

[rkangel]

That's a great article that I hadn't seen. It's a good way of looking at it.

The original post is very wrong because he sees it as an absolute. The trick, as with many things, is that it's a balance to be struck. You'll never learn anything if you ask someone else every small question, and you miss out on the full benefit of everyone else's skills and experience if you never ask anything.

[w4tson]

I was just thinking about that article having read this blog. It's a much better rule of thumb than what is being advocated in the title post

[ishansharma]

Came here thinking exactly this. Lot of us are in situations where time matters quite a bit. After trying some solutions, it is best to ask someone.

People asking how to do something when they haven't tried can get irritating sometimes.

The Akamai post you shared is interesting. Thanks for sharing.