The Smart, Smarter, and Smartest Questions
28 Jan 2026
Asking questions is a important part of engineering. Asking SMART questions is even more important! The quality of answers received can often defend on how well questions are formed. Smart questions can demonstrate how well a person knows their own problem and showing that will make it more likely to receive useful and meaningful responses. I will go over why asking smart questions is an important skill of software engineers, using “How To Ask Questions The Smart Way” to analyze a good and bad examples of questions from Stack Overflow.
One example of a poorly formed smart question is the poster asking simply whether “a folder inside a repository is a repository itself.” The question lacks clear context about the author’s goals, the specific system or tools being used, and any effort to research or articulate the underlying problem they want to solve. There is no indication of prior investigation into how Git treats subdirectories versus nested repositories. There is also no example demonstrating where the asker’s understanding breaks down. Because of this vagueness, the question invites speculation rather than targeted answers, and the community ultimately struggled to provide useful guidance without first seeking clarification. The post has been closed by Stack Overflow for “needs details or clarity.” It fails to satisfy core smart-question criteria such as specificity, demonstrated effort, and answerability.
A example from a good smart question comes from another poster that is asking whether it is possible to tie a profiler sample to a method in Unity to avoid multiple Profiler.EndSample() calls. In the post, question clearly defines the technical problem, includes a minimal code example demonstrating the pattern the author finds problematic, and situates the issue within a specific context. By showing what they are trying to achieve the poster reduces ambiguity and enables responders to understand the point of confusion. The question aligns well with the core precepts of smart questioning: clarity, context, and technical focus.
Looking at both of those questions, you can see that asking smart questions is not only about receiving answers, but also engaging in problem solving. This experience demonstrates that smart questions force the asker to clarify their own understanding, define constraints, and isolate the source of confusion before seeking help. Observing how question quality directly influenced the depth and usefulness of feedback reinforces how smart questions act as a signal of engineering maturity. Ultimately, this process emphasized that learning to ask better questions is an essential skill for software engineers, as it improves both individual understanding and the collective quality of shared technical knowledge.
Bad example: Repository question
Good example: Unity profiler question
AI was used while writing this essay. ChatGPT was asked to rephrase some sentences to make them smoother, clearer, or more concise while preserving my original idea or intent.