Don't Ask to Ask, Just Ask

"Can you do me a favor?" "Can you come here a second?" "HELP!"

It's an attempt to use emotional leverage to acquire assistance.

In the author's case they're appealing to prowess; "if you can help me with this then clearly you are an accomplished java person."

In my first two examples it's usually someone leveraging the nature of your relationship; "if you care about me you'll do this/look at this for me."

In my third example they're probably drowning or something and are trying to get someone's attention before that happens.

It's all very needful.

This drove me crazy in online discussions until I realized that 99% of the time, people who "ask to ask" don't just have a question, they want someone to be their dedicated tech support or mentor who will hold their hand and walk them through it, or will outright do the work for them. Now I just mentally filter these requests out and pretend they don't exist.

Since we haven't worked out etiquette for messaging systems we end up with things like:

    Hi.

    : ...

    can I ask a question?

    : apparently