"How to..", "How do you.." or "How do I.." when asking a practical question

As the title says, I'm asking because you can split the StackOverflow questions to three groups according to their openings, for example:

1. "How do I serialize an object...",
2. "How do you serialize an object...",
3. "How to serialize an object...",

And asking questions quite often myself, I'm curious which is the proper way.

Solution 1:

There are many ways to ask that question; some are more formal than others, some are grammatically wanting, and some are downright confusing. StackOverflow has plenty of ungrammatical English, so don't assume it is a paragon for English usage.

How do I serialize an object ...?

This is another way of asking "How can I ...?" except it literally asks the reader to guess how the writer does a serialization. It is informal and well understood, however.

How do you serialize an object ...?

This is also an informal phrasing, but its literal inquiry is not a departure: the OP may want to know how you do a thing, and that is what is being asked.

How to serialize an object ...?

The most charitable view of this phrasing is that it is a rhetorical phrasing using ellipsis. It will likely be understood, but may sound awkward unless finished deftly or followed with capable writing.

Other variants include:

How can I ...?

How does one ...?

What is the best way to ...?

Which approach is better: A or B?

And so on. There is no single correct way to ask a question.

Solution 2:

There are many differences between the phrases, but in the context of forum question they all work and are correct.

The best ones are

"How to serialize an object.."

and variants

"How does one serialize an object.."
"How should we serialize an object.."

because they all try to be objective and you will find these in technical papers (with the to form being the most neutral). They all ask for an ideal solution and are not ambiguous.

How do you serialize an object..

in the context of the forum question means the same and is perfectly understood and correct. In the context of forum question it is obvious that you are not directing the question to anyone in particular, but to all. However, if exactly the same phrase appears later in the comments then it will almost certainly be perceived as directed to a particular individual.

So, that is the slight difference - if you take out the context, the neutral forms will keep their meaning while the "I" and "You" forms depend on the context and can be taken literally.