9
$\begingroup$

A little background.

I am a total beginner in this field and arrived on this site some days after the SO blog announcement. I was intrigued by the idea that I can learn about Quantum Computing via StackExchange Q&A network and I jumped on Google and YouTube materials to learn more about it, with the plan to ask here whatever I don't understand and are not explained already out there (after a reasonable amount of research). This is how I asked the two questions:

They were both positively received (to my surprise) and got people providing detailed answers.

However, I have to admit, I only accepted the answers based on the vote counts on them, not because I understood them.

As opposed to traditional computing, you can't board this field so easily and learn as you go - it feels like you must have quite the background in Mathematics and Physics, if not other sciences as well.

To the question.

As experts in the field, do you think the site can be more beginner friendly? Should it?

Since I'm not sure that the answers could be dumbed down when someone says "I'm a beginner", maybe to have the help center point to some must-have knowledge, or a list of prerequisites, so that we (beginners) don't start polluting the site with relatively stupid questions but rather sit on the bench a few years until the Hello World programs start showing up :)

$\endgroup$
1
  • 9
    $\begingroup$ "However, I have to admit, I only accepted the answers based on the vote counts on them, not because I understood them.". I think it is better that you ask for clarification in comments of an answer if something is unclear to you. There is no need to be afraid to ask 'stupid' questions, it is quite likely others have them as well! Asking those questions can often help in improving the answer, so please ask them. $\endgroup$
    – Discrete lizard
    May 21, 2018 at 15:02

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
11
$\begingroup$

The number of people who are not complete beginners is currently too small to justify a Stack Exchange. If the site succeeds this time, it will be because more people are wanting to join the field, and because they find this site to be a good resource.

So I think we definitely need to be beginner friendly, and we should not regard any being above any well-intentioned question.

Your questions were certainly good ones. Please ask more!

$\endgroup$
1
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ A counter-point would be that allowing too many beginner level questions tend to drive experts away from the site. However, I guess that wouldn't really apply to this site as QC is already quite a niche topic and we don't get a flood of beginner level questions or homework questions, unlike the other math or science SE sites. So, we don't have much to worry about, along those lines. $\endgroup$
    – Sanchayan Dutta
    May 23, 2018 at 8:39
9
$\begingroup$

As experts in the field, do you think the site can be more beginner friendly? Should it?

I think it definitely should. It will be much more useful that way.

I think, from the side of the answer-providers, a decent strategy would be to treat all questions as also containing the tag "resource-request": systematically providing links to material that allows going from the question -assuming it is stated by a beginner- to the answer as provided by an expert.

From the part of the question-providers, one would need to get into some more detail, in terms of what one does understand and what one is willing or able to learn. Beginner is to broad of a term: in some tiny aspect of this topic I qualify as an expert, but for the vast majority of the topic I'm also a beginner myself.

$\endgroup$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .