Why 'Read the Manual' is Actually Good Advice on Stack Overflow

I used to get annoyed when the first comment on my question was 'RTFM'. It felt dismissive. But as I gained experience, I understood. Many questions on Stack Overflow could be solved by spending five minutes in the official documentation. The people answering are volunteers. They want to help with interesting, complex problems, not do your homework for you. Now, when I get the urge to ask a question, I force myself to read the relevant documentation page first. 90% of the time, I find my answer there. And for the remaining 10%, I can ask a much smarter question because I’ve done my homework.