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There's a user who posts the following stock comment in practically every C/C++ question he sees:

The right tool to solve such problems is to use your debugger, but not to ask at Stack Overflow before you did so. Tell us all your observations you made when inspecting your code stepping through line by line in 1st place. Also you might want to read How to debug small programs (by Eric Lippert)] At least leave us with a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example that reproduces your problem. (This is a personal stock comment provided by πάντα ῥεῖ™)

Most of the people posting these questions are newbies who need lots of hand-holding to figure out what their problem is. Just telling them to use their debugger seems unhelpful. Some of the questions aren't even about debugging, they're "how do I do X" questions.

And sometimes they have provided an MCVE, so that part of his comment is just plain wrong. E.g. skipping over my last cin input.

I've asked him not to post this comment when it's inappropriate, but he just keeps on doing it. He says he uses this stock comment because he's gotten tired of posting more specific comments, but is that really a valid excuse?

Is the idea expressed in his comment appropriate? If not, what can be done about his serial commenting?

BTW, I'm similarly annoyed by JavaScript questions where the OP obviously didn't check the web console for errors. I posted Remind users to check web console before submitting JavaScript questions a few months ago, and the answers seemed to have more sympathy for the clueless posters. So web programmers aren't expected to know how to use the basic debugging tools before posting, but C/C++ programmers are?

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    Most of the people posting these questions are newbies who need lots of hand-holding to figure out what their problem is. agreed - but are those really our audience? It's the eternal Culture War of Stack Overflow. I can't help but agree that the comment sounds like the minimal standard we should hold people to and that SO would be a much better place if that was generally understood.
    – Pekka
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 20:55
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    Yup, and it might be a much better place for it...
    – Pekka
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 20:58
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    I admit that when I first joined SO, I expected it to be experienced programmers helping other experienced programmers with tricky problems (I came here because I had such a problem). But as far as I can tell, it's mostly experienced programmers teaching beginners.
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 20:59
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    That's probably the reality, yes. But then there's nothing wrong with teaching even beginners basic standards and some amount of self-sufficiency in problem solving. It worked for earlier generations, it's gonna work for today's young folk
    – Pekka
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:01
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    While I agree with @Pekka웃 that we can do without the many low quality questions, I agree with you that comments should be appropriate to the post being commented on. I a user doesn't have the time to customise a stock comment to fit the post, it would be better not to comment.
    – Blackwood
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:04
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    I think the comment was appropriate for the linked question. It wasn't an answer, but it could give a newbie a nudge toward finding their own answer. Why not take advantage of a common, teachable moment with a stock comment? If it was being spammed indiscriminantly on irrelevant questions, it would be another story, but that's not what I'm seeing here.
    – Jim Lewis
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:15
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    Are you a native English speaker? "At least do X" implies that they didn't do X. Also, it means that providing an MCVE is sufficient, although additional information would be better.
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:24
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    @Barmar "Are you a native English speaker?" No I'm not, but usually I can communicate in english very well and clear. Though google translate gives me the exact meaning of what I used there. I'd expect that as a minimum effort put in.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:30
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    Google Translage doesn't understand nuances and context. "At least" can be used in a number of different ways.
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:33
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    @Barmar "BTW, I'm similarly annoyed by Javascript questions where the OP obviously didn't check the web console " So why don't you create a stock comment for this?
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:43
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    I think that response will often depend on who sees the post, and sometimes even what mood they're in, subjective yes, but we're all human. Myself, I can forgive ignorance since we're all born ignorant, but not lack of some modicum of effort.
    – Hovercraft Full Of Eels
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:44
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    @Barmar You're probably just envious about my ™ ;)
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:55
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    @Barmar There's no more automation rather than writing the text. Where I'm applying that is cherry picked as mentioned.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:58
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    "I've asked him not to post this comment when it's inappropriate, but he just keeps on doing it" - then this is probably just a difference of opinion over when is appropriate to post it.
    – jonrsharpe
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 23:11
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    "Remember, the whole reason they're here is that they don't know what they're doing!" Right, and this stock comment serves to teach them precisely that. There's no point in enabling ignorance when you can instead correct it!
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 15:01

2 Answers 2

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in practically every C/C++ question he sees

Certainly not, these are cherry picked!

That stock comment was designed very consciously and for valid reasons. I've been putting efforts into that, and it's being created because we see many questions coming in at the tag, that simply miss these basic techniques to solve the problems mentioned.

I'm mostly using that along a close vote and downvote. Many people are crying out for why there are no comments given with that. So I'm a nice person, and give them a reasoning.

Most of the people posting these questions are newbies who need lots of hand-holding to figure out what their problem is.

That's probably the culprit why their questions turn out to be off-topic.

I've asked him not to post this comment when it's inappropriate, but he just keeps on doing it. He says he uses this stock comment because he's gotten tired of posting more specific comments, but is that really a valid excuse?

It turned out to be useful to identify most of these problems could be solved as simple typographical or other trivially solvable errors (e.g using the debugger in 1st place before asking).

We're not meant to nanny every newbie user throughout the basics of a programming language IMO. I'm giving good reference how they could solve these kind of problems themselves in my stock comment.

I'm going to keep that stock comment for the tag (not to mention you don't really have a gold badge there). If I see better options I'd bail out bad questions as being a duplicate.

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    If they're typo questions, vote to close them with that reason.
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:10
  • @Barmar It's not always clear about their 1st shot.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:11
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    BTW, you have a typo in the stock comment. There's an extraneous ] after by Eric Lippert).
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:13
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    @Barmar Yes, that's true. I'm still having problems to setup that silly <snippets> tool regarding that :P
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 21:19
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    @Barmar I think I fixed that now.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 22:39
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    First they complain because you downvote without leaving a comment. Now they complain about the comment you leave. You just can't win!
    – Cody Gray - on strike Mod
    Commented Aug 21, 2016 at 11:31
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    @CodyGray Better the latter. (Hey that rhymes ;) ) I rarely seen someone complaining (besides Barmar) BTW.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 21, 2016 at 11:32
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    By the way, I think you don't need to add the ending that it's a stock comment, that's just noise.
    – DavidG
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 10:30
  • @DavidG It's changed meanwhile.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 11:28
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    Great. For info I think it's a good comment. I believe teaching people how to answer things for themselves gives them the most powerful skill in their arsenal.
    – DavidG
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 11:43
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    I just checked some occurences of the comment. It's okay, although I recommend more specific and shorter advice. However the questions in question are almost always of the awful sort, except maybe for the how many times is this struct copied. I would actually like to see an answer (even with a range of possible copy invocations and why they happen or do not happen).
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:20
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    Here it is How many copies will this code perform? unfortunately already closed as unclear although I think it is very clear.
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:22
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    @Trilarion Given the information in the question, the answer is "at least 0". Not very helpful if you ask me. One can also not simply iterate over all optimization settings of every C++ compiler. That information is essential.
    – Baum mit Augen Mod
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:33
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    @Trilarion With your edit the question is still too broad. (Expressing my opinion here.)
    – Baum mit Augen Mod
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:40
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    I just upvoted and starred this question, as it's a question devoted to @πάνταῥεῖ. ;)
    – user3956566
    Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 13:54
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Looks like a reasonable comment to me, as long as it is posted to questions where it actually applies.
I find myself leaving ad hoc comments like this frequently.

If "stock" comment implies the indiscriminate posting of this to all C++ questions, then no, that's obviously unacceptable. But I monitor the C++ tag, and although it gets so many questions I probably don't even see a quarter of them, I haven't seen πάντα ῥεῖ plaster this all over the place indiscriminately like this question seems to imply.

Otherwise, as a grammar nerd, there are a few things about the phrasing that bother me. I'd rephrase it as follows (which also makes it sound slightly nicer):

The right tool to solve such problems is your debugger. You should step through your code line-by-line before asking on Stack Overflow. For more help, please read How to debug small programs (by Eric Lippert). At a minimum, you should [edit] your question to include a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example that reproduces your problem, along with the observations you made in the debugger.

There is obviously no guarantee that leaving such a comment will elicit the desired response, or even any response at all. But I cannot see how it hurts to make the suggestion. At a minimum, it serves as an explanation for why the question is accumulating downvotes and close votes.

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    THX for your improvement proposals: I'll adopt these soon.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 21, 2016 at 17:05
  • And not even the slightest critique about my ™ joke :)
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 21, 2016 at 17:10
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    No, he doesn't post it in all C++ questions. I guess my problem is that he doesn't even take the effort to edit out the parts that don't apply to the current question. So it asks for an MCVE even when one is provided, and refers to the debugger even for "how to" questions (as opposed to "why isn't this working" questions).
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 21, 2016 at 17:59
  • @Cody Sorry for the pings, I had to test the updated version somewhere ;)
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 1:12
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    @πάνταῥεῖ That is a good point: including irrelevant things in your stock comment can make it worse than useless. Can you make your script to post it have checkboxes? (( ) missing MCVE ( ) needs DEBUGGING ( ) Code does not compile) -- then add/remove sentences/phrases based on the checkboxes?
    – Yakk - Adam Nevraumont
    Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 14:07
  • @Yakk It's a very poor script actually (not mine).
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 14:11

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