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Why am I here?

If you were sent here, somebody thought that your question lacked depth or displayed ignorance of basic knowledge and/or techniques one would learn in undergraduate courses. This is not your fault, but for us who write answers it has become a chore to explain the same things over and over again (many such questions arise from homework, and homework problems do not differ a lot).

Therefore, we have compiled a list of questions that are of general nature and have answers that should apply in a variety of situations. Please take the time to browse through those relevant to your question; chances are that we already have you covered. If not, it is likely that one of two things has happend:

  1. You don't understand the reference material.
    In this case, the best response is to do further research. That includes picking up textbooks (the reference answers may list some) and asking focused questions on the main site.

  2. You understand the material, but you can not apply it to your situation.
    In this case, edit your old question to include your attempts at solving the problem and why they failed. Then flag it for reopening; with this new information, we can help you identify your specific problem and move forward.

Remember: "I don't understand any of this, please explain in plain English!" is a bad enquiry. Nobody can know what your problem really is, which factoid would help you understand, and what the required scope for a good answer is. Try instead to phrase questions like "In above proof, why does B follow from A?" or "I have an algorithm but it seems to be wrong for corner case X, how can I fix it?"

That said, here is the list of reference posts:

Formal Languages

Complexity

Asymptotics

Architecture

Computability

Algorithms

Mathematics

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In order to keep this question as clean as possible, I'll protect it. If you think discussion is necessary, please open new thread and/or visit us in Computer Science Chat, where I'll also accept nominations for new/other reference questions. – Raphael♦ Feb 18 at 9:08
There is something similar on math.se and those are tagged as (faq) on the main site. Perhaps we should do the same. – Aryabhata Apr 11 at 0:07
@Aryabhata We avoided meta tags so far; what would be that use of that tag? – Raphael♦ Apr 11 at 7:23
@Raphael: Just grouping those questions, so you have easy access on the main site, can refer new users to browse through those etc. This was actually suggested by Jeff Atwood on math.se. – Aryabhata Apr 11 at 13:14
@Aryabhata Given that the tag is not going to be very visible, I think referring here where we can provide some explanation is better. If you want, you can open a new meta question so we can discuss this at length. – Raphael♦ Apr 11 at 14:48
@Raphael: Nah. It was just a suggestion. btw, you can always refer to this meta thread in the tag description. I doubt if many visitors to the main site will even bother with meta to find this thread. – Aryabhata Apr 11 at 14:49
@Aryabhata That's why we explicitly send them here, as necessary. I guess it will be linked in site FAQ eventually, too. – Raphael♦ Apr 11 at 15:05

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protected by Raphael♦ Feb 18 at 9:08

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