3 ms·
> you miss out all those things you would have also learned by reading the documentation. That's assuming that the documentation is articulately and technicall
by inetknght 9y ago
> you miss out all those things you would have also learned by reading the documentation.
That's assuming that the documentation is articulately and technically well written. Unfortunately that's more often the exception than the rule. That's rather the whole reason that StackOverflow even exists, I think.
- the8472 9y agoI agree where things are badly documented. But look at the top tags, java and javascript are generally well-documented.
- dmitriid 9y agoNope, they are not particularly well documented.
- frandroid 9y agoI find JS is well documented on MDN, but doc writers can't possibly imagine all edge cases and interactions. A lot of these cases are "If you knew about that simple feature of instruction A and the simple feature of instruction B and how they work together then you can solve this problem".
- dmitriid 9y agoOh. I actually clean forgot that MDN has docs on JS, not just DOM :) Yes. You're correct about that
- lucideer 9y agoIt's also assuming the SO answer is less considerate of context than the documentation; this can be the case, but I find quite often good answers are quite comprehensive and explain things broadly.
- gcb0 9y agothats exactly the point. before: questions were always open. and over time people added those details. now, after someone answer with a one liner and gets accepted, the question is "closed to prevent 'me too' comments" it's going downhill for the same reason every internet community does: power crazy moderators who completely misses the point of the site they moderate.
- ceejayoz 9y agoThe "me too" functionality is protection, not closing - registered users with a certain amount of reputation can still answer them. Similar to Wikipedia's system. Every "me too" protected item I've seen has half a dozen "me too" answers deleted at the bottom. It's likely necessary.
- Terr_ 9y agoI don't think it's just the moderators, there's also an incentive problem because a popular question/answer has no limits on its point-payout. This leads to a kind of popularity gold-rush pattern. Hard important stuff languishes while easy stuff is has a glut of volunteers. I'd be interested to see what happens if questions and answers only gave up to a fixed limit of Internet-points to the authors or contributors. Would it lead to a broader knowledge base?
- tedmiston 9y agoOr that the docs exist in the first place.