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There's a lot of value in StackOverflow, but it basically teaches programmers error-driven development where you stumble through a problem by mindlessly Googlin

by gitgud 6y ago

There's a lot of value in StackOverflow, but it basically teaches programmers error-driven development where you stumble through a problem by mindlessly Googling errors until you've cobbled something together that works... Even Joel Spolsky (creator of SO) has brought up some negative impacts of StackOverflow (on his old podcast at some point), saying nobody needs to learn anything anymore, just jump into the code and google the error messages. I'm guilty of this too, I just think it's a shame that Googling is preferable over learning...

sieabahlpark 6y ago
It wouldn't be so bad if most library documentation wasn't so poor on average.
thawaway1837 6y ago
I’m curious if you programmed professionally before SO. I feel the average junior developer’s, or even senior developer’s, for that matter, code was a lot worse than the average SO response, which has now become the baseline for all types of devs, so their code is at worst as bad.
- jasonlhy 6y ago
  I think the main reason is many developer lacks the skill of systematic learning. Never attempt to read the basic manual / document and understand the basic theory behind the technology
the_af 6y ago
> just jump into the code and google the error messages. You cannot develop an app, evaluate different solutions, choose an architecture, address performance problems, etc, via StackOverflow. StackOverflow is for specific problems; it can help you sort out some errors, because most of them aren't exactly coding problems. A senior engineer's job isn't just to make an app compile, so you cannot reach this position just by searching SO.
perl4ever 6y ago
Maybe it's just the sort of questions I have, but almost every programming question I have seems to end up having at least 2-5 different answers, and the easiest to find one is wrong, or maybe not exactly wrong, but really terrible in the approach. When I look for an answer, I do look to Google and/or stackoverflow, but then I immediately turn to figuring out how to find the "real" answer. Also, a lot of times, Google's approach to identifying the single answer to your question means it masks any similar question, making it severely handicapped in answering anything difficult. But if it wasn't a difficult question, I wouldn't be asking!

by gitgud 6y ago

sieabahlpark 6y ago

It wouldn't be so bad if most library documentation wasn't so poor on average.

thawaway1837 6y ago

I’m curious if you programmed professionally before SO. I feel the average junior developer’s, or even senior developer’s, for that matter, code was a lot worse than the average SO response, which has now become the baseline for all types of devs, so their code is at worst as bad.

jasonlhy 6y ago
I think the main reason is many developer lacks the skill of systematic learning. Never attempt to read the basic manual / document and understand the basic theory behind the technology

the_af 6y ago

> just jump into the code and google the error messages. You cannot develop an app, evaluate different solutions, choose an architecture, address performance problems, etc, via StackOverflow. StackOverflow is for specific problems; it can help you sort out some errors, because most of them aren't exactly coding problems. A senior engineer's job isn't just to make an app compile, so you cannot reach this position just by searching SO.

perl4ever 6y ago

Maybe it's just the sort of questions I have, but almost every programming question I have seems to end up having at least 2-5 different answers, and the easiest to find one is wrong, or maybe not exactly wrong, but really terrible in the approach. When I look for an answer, I do look to Google and/or stackoverflow, but then I immediately turn to figuring out how to find the "real" answer. Also, a lot of times, Google's approach to identifying the single answer to your question means it masks any similar question, making it severely handicapped in answering anything difficult. But if it wasn't a difficult question, I wouldn't be asking!