Asking For Help

During Normal Weeks

We ask that you take the following steps when dealing with technical questions:

1. Try something else (another approach)
2. Google your exact problem or error
3. Reference the lesson plan related to your assignment
4. Ask your classmates
5. Ask an instructor

If your question is non-technical — you’re feeling overwhelmed, or you have questions about a homework or project prompt — please reach out directly to an instructor as soon as possible and we will be glad to meet with you one-on-one.

During Project Weeks

GitHub issues are the most useful method for answering technical questions. At least one instructor will be dedicated to monitoring issues at all times during working hours.

Issues should include all of the following information:

• What you are trying to do (in terms of code)
• What have you tried
  • Documentation you have looked at
  • Steps you have taken to solve the problem
  • Resources you have used
• What you expected to happen
• What you have observed happening instead
  • Detailed description of the bug or error
  • Relevant code/files/errors (and screenshots if applicable)
• A link to your GitHub repo and an indication of the lines of code that your issue is related to

Please close your issues when you’ve received a satisfactory answer, and let us know what the solution was. We’ll close issues that have gone more than 30 minutes without any updates.

Why Issues?

Many reasons! The biggest is that programmers often have the same question. This way, students with the same question can find their answer in one place.

Additionally, having to articulate the question into words is very helpful in understanding the problem. Sometimes, simply articulating the question gives you the answer.

During certain projects, we’ll set aside time for in-person technical support. Further details on this will be announced during project kickoffs.