Should I ask a question about changing the way module works, if I'm preparing to hack it?

Question

Related: Can a question about a module bug ever become on topic for Drupal Answers?

I need a module to work a bit different than it does now. And I will force it to do so, But I wanted to ask first, as maybe someone already did it, or have a solution I simply don't know. But I don't want my question to be closed as a bug report.

I'm not at the stage of rewriting the code yet (I will be in about half an hour). So far I exhausted documentation and configuration options. Would it be OK to post a question now, or should I postpone until I have some real code pieces figured out?

I hoped it will be a self-answer, but the longer I tinker with it, the harder it seems. On the other hand, I will know the answer pretty soon, as it's a blocking issue in my project.

Answer 1

The important thing is to ask about one specific thing per question. "How do I change x module to do this?" probably wouldn't be appropriate, because it sounds like there would be multiple different disciplines involved.

But asking something specific about the code you're already writing is fine - in fact, that's your suggestion from the linked question :P It feels natural that you would augment the question with some description about what you're doing, and if that happens to be converting a module from one thing to another, then so be it.

Without seeing the question you're planning to ask it's kind of difficult to give 100% accurate advice - but my instinct says that asking a good hypothetical question about this is going to be difficult to make into a good one, or certainly more difficult than asking about a practical problem you've coming across while coding.

You could certainly try asking it, and wait to see what feedback you get from the community.