5 ms·

That and finding a question you've search for, only to find out that question was also posted by you years ago. Bonus for ones with no answers still.

mlvljr 10y ago
Extra bonus, if closed as "not a real question", heavily upvoted, at the top of the Google's 1st page of search results, and actually containing a (heavily upvoted as well) solution. P.S. Recursive bonus: closed with a comment ("you should just google it") and now actually the top result in search output (happens quite frequently) :)
- nitrogen 10y ago
  Your PS is particularly annoying when the result is from an 8 year old forum thread, and the thread was closed with "this thread is too old; use Google." To comment on the headline, I am an experienced developer who also uses Google and DuckDuckGo several times per day. It's often faster to look up a method in the Java or Ruby stdlib that way, rather than navigating through the official docs hierarchy.
heleph 10y ago
Or someone else in your team who tried to make the change last time it came around, who has now left and lives in another time zone.
flashm 10y ago
I usually pack up for the day when that happens.
DanielBMarkham 10y ago
Or a question you had years ago. Couldn't find an answer. So you did a workaround and/or forgot about it. Now you hit the same problem search -- and find you original question. But wait! Now there are half-a-dozen other people with the same problem! So you click on all of those links. But none of them could find an answer either. Bonus points if there's a guy who comes in condescendingly and quotes a manual or some other standard piece of information -- which is also wrong. This is usually because they didn't pay enough attention to understand the question in the first place.
- franciscop 10y ago
  "So you did a workaround" I always answer my own questions if no answer was given and I found a workaround/hack to solve it. Not for myself, but chances are that in few years, if I search for the same question I'll find my own.
- Keyframe 10y ago
  I had a guy, on stackoverflow, commenting condescendingly on my question (or was it an answer, can't remember) that I was wrong and I should edit my post with his answer instead. All would be well if it wasn't on a 6 year old post at the time, and he was wrong. Ah, stackoverflow - what happened to you? It was fine and dandy when it was all loose. Now you ask a question and it's immediately flagged for various reasons. I've noticed that a lot in programming (I'm not actively programming anymore). It's always fun until the entropy of the rigidness comes in.
  - SmirkingRevenge 10y ago
    I really hate that. I'd say at least half of the questions/answers I come across are closed flagged as vague, or whatever but at the same time, were incredibly informative, useful and exactly what I was looking for. The SO moderators need to chillax a bit.
  - arsenide 10y ago
    The one time I posted a question on SO, it got flagged as duplicate and there were links to multiple other questions that were not even remotely the same to mine. Even more so, the tagged questions were not even mutually the same! It took two hours to carefully craft my question just to have it immediately shot down. It is needless to say I have not posted again since.
    - thenomad 10y ago
      Yup. If I post anything on SO or related sites it's because I hope to get an answer before the question is inevitably closed. I just assume that my question won't fit their guidelines, regardless of what it is, these days.
ljw1001 10y ago
A weird, but wonderful feeling.

mlvljr 10y ago

Extra bonus, if closed as "not a real question", heavily upvoted, at the top of the Google's 1st page of search results, and actually containing a (heavily upvoted as well) solution. P.S. Recursive bonus: closed with a comment ("you should just google it") and now actually the top result in search output (happens quite frequently) :)

nitrogen 10y ago
Your PS is particularly annoying when the result is from an 8 year old forum thread, and the thread was closed with "this thread is too old; use Google." To comment on the headline, I am an experienced developer who also uses Google and DuckDuckGo several times per day. It's often faster to look up a method in the Java or Ruby stdlib that way, rather than navigating through the official docs hierarchy.

heleph 10y ago

Or someone else in your team who tried to make the change last time it came around, who has now left and lives in another time zone.

flashm 10y ago

I usually pack up for the day when that happens.

DanielBMarkham 10y ago

Or a question you had years ago. Couldn't find an answer. So you did a workaround and/or forgot about it. Now you hit the same problem search -- and find you original question. But wait! Now there are half-a-dozen other people with the same problem! So you click on all of those links. But none of them could find an answer either. Bonus points if there's a guy who comes in condescendingly and quotes a manual or some other standard piece of information -- which is also wrong. This is usually because they didn't pay enough attention to understand the question in the first place.

franciscop 10y ago
"So you did a workaround" I always answer my own questions if no answer was given and I found a workaround/hack to solve it. Not for myself, but chances are that in few years, if I search for the same question I'll find my own.
Keyframe 10y ago
I had a guy, on stackoverflow, commenting condescendingly on my question (or was it an answer, can't remember) that I was wrong and I should edit my post with his answer instead. All would be well if it wasn't on a 6 year old post at the time, and he was wrong. Ah, stackoverflow - what happened to you? It was fine and dandy when it was all loose. Now you ask a question and it's immediately flagged for various reasons. I've noticed that a lot in programming (I'm not actively programming anymore). It's always fun until the entropy of the rigidness comes in.
- SmirkingRevenge 10y ago
  I really hate that. I'd say at least half of the questions/answers I come across are closed flagged as vague, or whatever but at the same time, were incredibly informative, useful and exactly what I was looking for. The SO moderators need to chillax a bit.
- arsenide 10y ago
  The one time I posted a question on SO, it got flagged as duplicate and there were links to multiple other questions that were not even remotely the same to mine. Even more so, the tagged questions were not even mutually the same! It took two hours to carefully craft my question just to have it immediately shot down. It is needless to say I have not posted again since.
  - thenomad 10y ago
    Yup. If I post anything on SO or related sites it's because I hope to get an answer before the question is inevitably closed. I just assume that my question won't fit their guidelines, regardless of what it is, these days.

ljw1001 10y ago

A weird, but wonderful feeling.