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"There is a skill of knowing when and how to ask questions, and this skill can be learned." ^ this

Ask the questions well and more senior dev isn't going to be nearly as annoyed and be way more willing to dive in and help. Show that at a minimum you understand why you are stuck.

"This doesn't work, help" is bad.

"This doesn't work because when X happens I get Y instead of Z which is what would have expected" is much better.



That is such a good point, and thinking about it makes me realize why certain help requests bother me and others don't.

Explaining how the result differs from expectation when asking the question makes answering the question so much easier.


Agreed. Often the answer is embedded in the error message, but people see an error and come to a stop instead of reading and thinking.




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