How to ask good questions about software
Julia Evans argues that asking good questions is a trainable software engineering skill, not a personality trait. Her core technique: state what you already understand, then ask 'is that right?'. She rewrites vague questions ('how do SQL joins work?') into questions with factual answers — is joining N and M rows O(NM) or O(NlogN)+O(MlogM), does MySQL always sort join columns first. She shows the rkt-dev mailing list question where she first wrote down how rkt and Docker store container images differently, then asked why; and the term dictionary she built for Hadoop, Scalding, Hive, Impala and HDFS when joining a data team. She also covers choosing whom to ask (a 5-minute answer that saves you 2 hours is a good trade; the most senior person is not always the right target), stopping an explanation to ask what a term like optimistic locking means, and reading the Etsy Debriefing Facilitation Guide for questions that surface hidden assumptions. She is explicit that asking dumb questions is fine, and criticizes ESR's 'How To Ask Questions The Smart Way' for putting an unreasonable burden on askers. Aimed at engineers ramping up on unfamiliar systems.