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I don't understand how someone can "have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site". I use StackOverflow practically all the time. I always think to

I don't understand how someone can "have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site". I use StackOverflow practically all the time. I always think to myself, "yep, this (Wikipedia, YouTube and... yah HN) is what the internet is for". But maybe I'm just too young. (I'm 47 ;) )

Alex3917 9y ago
I think the idea is that after being a developer for 20+ years, one may either develop some intuition about how to use some package even if the documentation is poorly written, or else you have so much experience reading source code that doing so is almost as fast as reading the documentation. I'm not saying that either of these is correct, but they could be plausible explanations.
coldtea 9y ago
>I don't understand how someone can "have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site". If you've been programming for a couple of decades and you don't follow the trends du jour it's actually quite easy (note: I'm not at that level myself). Seasoned C and C++ programmers, for example, don't have much to learn from Stack Overflow in the same way a (1) new programmer, (2) 0-20 years programmer who constantly juggles languages, APIs and frameworks etc depending on the job and the fads of the season. You think someone like Linus checks SO to get his answers? There are tons of programmers with such levels of experience (even if somewhat less so than Linus). Let's put it another way: before 2008 NO programmer checked "Stack Overflow" all the time. Before 2000 they didn't even have Google, and before 1995 or so they didn't have much (if anything) in the way of online documentation and similar resources. That's not ancient history: a 20 year-ish programmer has managed for 10+ years of their career without Stack Overflow.
- pnw_hazor 9y ago
  Windows programmers had the MSDN, or whatever it was called. MS provided lots of example code and docs.
  - JdeBP 9y ago
    As many companies did. It came on discs. In the post.
ryandrake 9y ago
I don't tend to use StackOverflow all that much. Once in a while I'll look up a poorly documented error code on Google and one of the results will be S.O. But, then again, I tend to stick with languages and libraries with adequate documentation. Honestly, if one is constantly looking everything up on StackOverflow, they're either using a very poorly documented technology or they might want to hit the books a bit and work on proficiency. "Knowing the literature" is becoming more and more underrated.

Alex3917 9y ago

I think the idea is that after being a developer for 20+ years, one may either develop some intuition about how to use some package even if the documentation is poorly written, or else you have so much experience reading source code that doing so is almost as fast as reading the documentation. I'm not saying that either of these is correct, but they could be plausible explanations.

coldtea 9y ago

>I don't understand how someone can "have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site". If you've been programming for a couple of decades and you don't follow the trends du jour it's actually quite easy (note: I'm not at that level myself). Seasoned C and C++ programmers, for example, don't have much to learn from Stack Overflow in the same way a (1) new programmer, (2) 0-20 years programmer who constantly juggles languages, APIs and frameworks etc depending on the job and the fads of the season. You think someone like Linus checks SO to get his answers? There are tons of programmers with such levels of experience (even if somewhat less so than Linus). Let's put it another way: before 2008 NO programmer checked "Stack Overflow" all the time. Before 2000 they didn't even have Google, and before 1995 or so they didn't have much (if anything) in the way of online documentation and similar resources. That's not ancient history: a 20 year-ish programmer has managed for 10+ years of their career without Stack Overflow.

pnw_hazor 9y ago
Windows programmers had the MSDN, or whatever it was called. MS provided lots of example code and docs.
- JdeBP 9y ago
  As many companies did. It came on discs. In the post.

ryandrake 9y ago

I don't tend to use StackOverflow all that much. Once in a while I'll look up a poorly documented error code on Google and one of the results will be S.O. But, then again, I tend to stick with languages and libraries with adequate documentation. Honestly, if one is constantly looking everything up on StackOverflow, they're either using a very poorly documented technology or they might want to hit the books a bit and work on proficiency. "Knowing the literature" is becoming more and more underrated.