i feel really bad for asking opinion to my programmer friends (about tech), and he said programmer should be someone who search and try that tech, instead of keep asking

He's correct. Asking is one of the last resorts.

In list of priority:

1) attempt yourself
2) ask google
3) search stackoverflow
4) ask a coworker, you now have a history of trying to do it and what didn't work.
5) ask stackoverflow

@C0D4

thank youu!

@C0D4 I'd entirely scratch out asking on SO as beginner. Just don't do that.

Beginner questions have either already been asked, in which case option 3) has not been carried out properly and the question will be downvoted and closed as duplicate.

Or the matter is way over beginners' understanding because they're still missing basics and hence won't be able to make sense of the answers anyway.

@Fast-Nop that's why it's last on the list, i guess. as it should be.

and asking on SO is _absolutely_ no problem - if you're smart enough to read and understand _how_ and _what to ask_ beforehand. which, sadly, most people aren't.

@tosensei agreed, you have to have done a thorough search and the make sure to clearly describe the problem, with examples if possible, and even a list of things you tried which did not work.

That would not only reduce the number of nonsense answers but could get some of the really good users to engage and answer.

@netikras I disagree, asking is the right thing, who you ask is the important part ;)

As in start with google.

If you know the answer or find it fast enough of your own sure, but if you spend a day trying before asking your wasting time unless its a school or purely educational task.

@Voxera and additionally: correctly _defining_ a problem is at least 50% of solving it.

maybe that's why question quality is so low - those who actually read the tutorials and wrote a good question found the answer and didn't need to post the question.

@Voxera I'm not saying asking is wrong. I'm saying it's one of the last resorts.

Searching for the answer yourself should be the first thing to do: search engines, forums, docs, etc.

When that doesn't yield anything useful - ask someone for hints/keywords to search for

When THAT doesn't work, IMO it's alright to ask someone to get more involved: with more elaborate questions, answers and hands-on assistance.

Unless you meant "asking" as a generic term, not necessarily asking in person. Then you are correct. But then this becomes a more philosophical topic. I used "asking" as asking a person, i.e. disturbing someone's concentration to help you out do something you could not do yourself. I don't count google servers' CPU wasted for your query as "disturbing someone's concentration"

@tosensei rubber duck debugging, workswith most problems ;), and does not actually need a rubber duck, just something of similar intelligence.

@Voxera "just something of similar intelligence." - you mean... you've found a good use for managers?