Asking for help

21 Sep 2020

tl;dr: When you need some help or support, the #help channel on Slack will come in useful. But when you do ask for help, spending a moment and formulating your question will be of real help to getting you a quick response.

This class will be remote and it involves writing code, building circuits and making electronics projects. Along the way, you’ll probably encounter a problem or two. And as we won’t be together, our slack community and in particular #help will be a go-to resource.

Don’t be afraid to ask.

Learning to code and work with circuits can be daunting. Asking for help in a semi-public forum may feel unnerving too. But rest assured asking a question is useful, productive and helpful.

Especially,

Especially, now as we’re remote and not able to support one another directly, this channel will be invaluable. So first off, if you feel stuck, please reach out and we’ll do our best to help you.

While you’re learning to c Being new to coding and electronics,

that means we won’t be together

Be specific Offer as much information as possible Explain what you were doing or trying to do when the problem occured Format your question properly. don’t send a screenshot of your code use slacks code snippet feature and share code that we can edit, copy and paste.

If the problem is hardware based: A photo, top down of your circuit is essential. Don’t take a side on photo. it’s just not helpful.

https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask

https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002202#s9 https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/12/07/asking-for-help/