Make it easy for others to help you

I enjoy helping out fellow Laravel devs when they get stuck.

Through the multitude of questions I've received over the years, a pattern has emerged which I thought would be helpful to share.

The devs that get help the easiest are the ones that share the most specific information.

For example, instead of saying "I tried this, and it didn't work. Any idea why?" they will say something like "Here's the code I tried, I expected it to do X, but instead it did Y. I've tried A, B, and C to fix it, with the same result. Any ideas what I'm missing?"

With the first dev, it's possible I could guess what the problem is based on the meager hints, but the odds are low. Instead, I may need several messages back and forth to coax out the details. When I'm doing this asynchronously, that could mean days of delay.

It's frustrating for both parties.

With the second dev, the odds of me knowing what is going on and having a helpful suggestion are considerably higher. Even better, if I need to ask a follow-up question, I have far more context to work with.

Also, it's clear that they put in more effort, which further motivates me to want to help.

So next time you're stuck and going to ask for help, share a little more info. Think about what you'd want to know if someone was going to ask you for help.

Here to help,

Joel

P.S. And don't forget, I'm available the next time you're stuck.