Js question

#help

Write a javascript program to find the smallest of n numbers?

Top comments (11)

MariusLinders • Nov 1 '20

Math.min(...numberArray)

calypso007 • Nov 1 '20

Write a javascript program to find the smallest of n numbers? Please ans

MariusLinders • Nov 1 '20

I just did 🙃

calypso007 • Nov 1 '20

Can you answer in a proper format?

ogoh cyril • Nov 1 '20

Thats the answer😂😂

Var a = [10,4,6,7,9];

// Find the minimum value
var b = math.min(a);

console.log(b)

Matt Ellen-Tsivintzeli • Nov 4 '20

Would you like advice on how to ask programming questions?

calypso007 • Nov 11 '20

Yeah sure

Matt Ellen-Tsivintzeli • Nov 12 '20

short version:

Introduce yourself to the group.
Try and solve the problem yourself.
Add in your attempt into your question.
Read documentation.
Add in what you learn from the documentation into your question.
Make sure you have all essential information in your question, don't assume people know what you know about your question.

First of all it's good that you feel you can ask for help. It's better than trying to struggle by yourself.

However, people are not usually willing to do all the work for you. Groups are pretty resistant to people who make demands without any evidence that you could become an asset for the group.

So, when you state your requests as "write a programme to do X", it seems you want to take from the group, without any evidence that you'll reciprocate. Stating your problem that way seems like you want to be spoonfed, and it is unlikely that you will find people who want to treat you like their responsibility.

I acknowledge that you are a student, and so perhaps don't have a lot of technical knowledge to offer the group. That's fine. There are a lot of people in your situation here. Dev.to is a social group as much as a technical group. People don't just share programming tips, they share themselves.

The first step I recommend is to introduce yourself to the group. You can do that either as its own post, or in one of the "introduce yourself threads" (like this one). It might seem daunting, but letting the group get to know you makes it seem like you'll be sticking around and are not some kind of help vampire that just pops in to suck code out of people and leave. The people here are quite friendly, so you will be welcomed.

The next step is how to word your questions.

First, the hard truth: programmers are often averse to answering questions that don't fit their personal standards. This underlies much of the conflict found between new users and established users on sites like Stack Overflow.

Most established programmers had to learn everything themselves. A lot of trial, error and reading the docs. If they feel like you're trying to avoid that, they will resent it.

So, don't ever make your question a demand. I assume, so correct me if I'm wrong, but your first language is not English. In English, if you write a question as you have, you look like you're making a demand. If practical, start your question with a question word, e.g. how, why, when. In you're question that would be "How can I write a javascript program to find the smallest of n numbers?"

I recommend that be the title of your question, although for some people "js question" is interesting enough to get them to click, others see it as a sign of low effort.

Next is the body of the question.

Your question is problematic because it can be answered by reading the documentation. This is pointed out in one of the comments.

Remember, programmers won't want to give you information if it looks like you are not trying. So before you ask your question, you need to look in the documentation. Simply doing this is likely to improve your question, because at the very least you should be able to say why the documentation isn't helpful, if nothing else.

The second problem I noticed is that not all of the question is there. I have often had the problem where I've said or written something and the people on the receiving end have not been able to help because something I thought was implicit, i.e. something I didn't need to say, but it was not, i.e. the people I was asking for help would need to read my mind to get the full picture.

With your question, someone answered and your response was to restate the question. The person who answered you inevitably found that quite frustrating, and then you asked for the answer to be in a "proper format". Only you know what you mean by "proper format", and that information should have been in the question from the start.

What I'm trying to say is that you need to put as much information into the question as necessary to give people the best chance at helping you. It's a difficult thing to judge as it's possible to put too much information, but usually more is better than less, because at least with too much it can be cut down to what is essential.

Finally, never be afraid to show what you've tried. Showing willingness to try will get a lot of people on your side. So if you have tried a for loop, but it's not quite working, add that to the question.

Don't worry about asking the perfect question, just try to improve as you go.