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General Discussion

Posted by ub46473788
ub46473788
8,782 Points

How to determine best answer?

Hi everybody, I'm just curious what the common practice is for selecting a 'best' answer. When asking a question, you'll often get more than one response that adequately answers the question. Do folks tend just to mark the first good-enough answer as the 'best' answer? Or is there some other standard by which 'best'ness is determined? Given that, for any given question, there is likely to be more than one perfectly adequate way of answering the question, and since which method one might count as 'best' is at least in part determined by one's own preferences (do I want a loop here, or a function? Should this be an array or an object?) I hesitate, since I'm rather new to all of this, to mark one answer, rather than another, as 'best.' So, I'm just curious how other folks go about it.

Am I over-thinking this?

Thanks for your time!

1 Answer

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,148 Points
Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,148 Points

You're over thinking it, lol. To simplify it, the best way to determine the best answer is whenever I give an answer.

I kid, I kid!!

The best answer to me really just represents what got it done, what satisfied the questioner's question. If you have more than one answer that works, one might be cleaner, one might have been first, any of those types of tiebreakers work.

Best answers can be changed, if a better answer comes along. But it's good practice to choose a best answer if you have a solution that works, even if you don't know the best best answer. At least marking one will let a future dev with a problem know this thread has a solution that worked for the questioner, and at that point its up to that person to see if the same answer helps them.

This is often why good answers get multiple upvotes from other users, it's kind of a way for others to acknowledge that it is a good answer.

Best answers can even be your own answer, if you find a solution to your own problem. Again, it's all about showing this thread has a solution, it's satisfied.

ub46473788
ub46473788
8,782 Points

Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate your thoughtful response :)