How complete should answers be?

Question

I had a strong discussion with one person about the quality of my answer, and I would like to get an independent opinion.

The question was that user wanted to implement some method himself, but it didn't work. I realized that the problem was in how he calls the method (he did not store results in a variable), so I pointed him to this problem.

But somebody downvoted my answer (and all others). I started to discuss the completeness of my answer with this person via comments. He thinks that it's poor quality because I did not re-implement the original method that did not cover some corner cases. He did not accept my statement that I fixed the problem that the user had, and therefore the asker can continue with his task.

What do you think? Shall we teach newbie programmers so they can learn from their mistakes, or shall we present complete solutions so they can copy/paste them?

See the post.

Answer 1

From the FAQ on how to write a good answer. (bold by me)

... Any answer that gets the asker going in the right direction is helpful, but do try to mention any limitations, assumptions or simplifications in your answer. Brevity is acceptable, but fuller explanations are better.

The only requirement (at minimum) is that you answer the question, which from what I can see, is what you did exactly. The problem was on how the asker was using the function, and not on the implementation. So IMO, your answer was acceptable.

As the FAQ says, if you expanded on his implementation, it would probably have been more complete, but not necessary as it lies out of the scope of his problem. Personally, I find concise answers better at times, because they get to the point, where as some overly complete answers put in way too much information that only tangentially relate to the problem.

Answer 2

It is up to the readers of any given post to determine if it is sufficiently "complete". It is going to vary too widely given the specific context to provide particularly specific guidelines. Some questions really require a very complete answer, some don't (and with lots of room in the middle).

Answer 3

Hover above the upvote is "This answer is useful," which is a surprisingly complete recommendation. Your answer was something of a specific and clear hint in the right direction, so I see how people could disagree. In practice, usually voters side against askers of poor questions.

As for me, I neither upvoted nor downvoted. I see why someone downvoted but I personally think your answer was fine.

Answer 4

I generally try to stick to this rule:

1. I answer the question.

2. If I notice something dangerous about the code, I always point it out as well.

3. I will also point it out when I believe that the problem that the OP is really trying to solve calls for a radically different solution than the one the OP tried.

In short, I try to be as useful as I can, knowing that quite a few of my answers address more than what has been asked for.

Answer 5

Shall we teach newbie programmers so they can learn from their mistakes, or shall we present complete solutions so they can copy/paste them?

Why not both? Seems to me like a question of how many upvotes you want, and how hard you want to work for them. If you want to please everyone...well, you can't. If you give your answer and the alternate answer that the OP seems to have been looking for, you might get an upvote from the OP, but you might get a downvote from someone whose "TL;DR"-sense tingled. IMHO, a thorough answer that provides alternatives is ideal, and downvoting due to a TL;DR impulse is childish, but it's a democratic process, and you're certainly likely to at least lose upvotes to the TL;DR impulse (in my limited experience, at least). Brevity factors into clarity, after all. One way to work around this problem would be to post a separate answer of the sort desired by the OP (leaving your original answer unaltered), but that's liable to irk some people too I'm sure. See some differences of opinion on "Two Answers, One Question".

Anyway, a direct answer: if you have time and talent, you should be able to do both in many cases (within reason – maybe just a complete code snippet). If you do, I suspect more people will find your work useful.