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This is what I've been working on with RISC-V, and you have no idea how much resistance I get when I try to fix the problems relating to calling conventions, in

This is what I've been working on with RISC-V, and you have no idea how much resistance I get when I try to fix the problems relating to calling conventions, inline assembly and system calls. I don't want to have to explain what I'm doing from the beginning every time I have a complex question about how to make a function call from inline assembly. It has really turned me off from stackoverflow as a whole. Sorry for the rant. I think your project is awesome, and really shows that we can improve the base upon which everything rests.

kenniskrag 6y ago
I reached the same conclusion about stackoverflow. Is there an incentive from the real world to answer questions because so many beginner try it?
- egil 6y ago
  I guess it's a ROI issue. Low effort answers to many easy questions gets you many points, while novel questions which requires thorough understanding is high effort and few points.
- wrycoder 6y ago
  Is there an incentive from the real world to answer questions Apparently so - if you look at the “Customer Questions and Answers” section of Amazon product pages, there is a remarkably high proportion of answers like, “I don’t know, I haven’t opened it yet” and “I’m not sure, I bought it as a gift”.
  - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
    Occasionally AMZN will send out questions others have asked about products to you in the form of an email if you have previously purchased the same product. Some people mistake those for questions directly asked to them instead of realizing where their answer will be posted. StackOverflow doesn't do that AFAIK.
    - ComputerGuru 6y ago
      See my other reply. It’s not fair to even say the user is making a mistake; it’s Amazon purposely manipulating users into thinking they’re being personally asked a question to game their way into getting more answers.
    - wrycoder 6y ago
      Oh. I didn’t think of that. I’m too naïve. Thanks!
  - ComputerGuru 6y ago
    No, that is sleazy as anything “growth hacking” from Amazon. If you bought product X and some months or years later “Sam” posts a question on Amazon that isn’t answered, Amazon will send you an email with a subject line that is a variation of “Sam has a question for you about Product X, can you help?” and the body would be something along the lines of “Dear foo, Sam wants to know if <insert question regarding Product X here>? Click here to respond to Sam and help her out!” In that context, you can easily see why people reply with such otherwise useless “answers.” When someone personally asks you a question you don’t know the answer to, responding with “sorry, I bought it for my husband as a gift and I don’t know,” is not just perfectly valid, it’s also the polite thing to do. But that answer is posted to the website in the genera Q&A as of you had viewed the question and then instead of passing on a question you had no answer for, you chose to reply with a useless answer.
    - wrycoder 6y ago
      Very interesting. I had not considered that possibility.
xyproto 6y ago
I have the same experience. Stack Overflow is not great when you try to achive something novel or do something new from scratch.
- bluedino 6y ago
  Can you guys link to an example?
  - ducktective 6y ago
    stackoverflow.com
  - abainbridge 6y ago
    A question I asked that springs to mind is https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37554058/fast-display-of-waveform-in-c-c https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37554058/fast-display-of... It was down voted to a negative score initially. People posted irrelevant/unhelpful comments that I had to hurriedly refute before the question was closed and deleted. To be fair, I have tweaked the question since, so it probably makes more sense than it did when I initially asked it. But I feel that is something the community should help with.
- PaulHoule 6y ago
  It's also a crap shoot when you try to solve a routine task. You might read through 1500 lines of people arguing before you get to the right answer, get an almost right answer, or no answer. If you are working in a language which has good documentation (say Python or Java) you are best off learning how to look up the right answers in the official manual quickly and let your competitors waste time with stack overflow.
- jacobr1 6y ago
  What is a way to fix this? Is this some part of an endless long-cycle of adoption for social networks over some kind of crossing-the-chasm style adoption curve? Or is there a structural way to fix it? Stackoverflow is better than its predecessors, but clearly is much less valuable now than for its first few 5 years or so.

kenniskrag 6y ago

I reached the same conclusion about stackoverflow. Is there an incentive from the real world to answer questions because so many beginner try it?

egil 6y ago
I guess it's a ROI issue. Low effort answers to many easy questions gets you many points, while novel questions which requires thorough understanding is high effort and few points.
wrycoder 6y ago
Is there an incentive from the real world to answer questions Apparently so - if you look at the “Customer Questions and Answers” section of Amazon product pages, there is a remarkably high proportion of answers like, “I don’t know, I haven’t opened it yet” and “I’m not sure, I bought it as a gift”.
- _underfl0w_ 6y ago
  Occasionally AMZN will send out questions others have asked about products to you in the form of an email if you have previously purchased the same product. Some people mistake those for questions directly asked to them instead of realizing where their answer will be posted. StackOverflow doesn't do that AFAIK.
  - ComputerGuru 6y ago
    See my other reply. It’s not fair to even say the user is making a mistake; it’s Amazon purposely manipulating users into thinking they’re being personally asked a question to game their way into getting more answers.
  - wrycoder 6y ago
    Oh. I didn’t think of that. I’m too naïve. Thanks!
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  No, that is sleazy as anything “growth hacking” from Amazon. If you bought product X and some months or years later “Sam” posts a question on Amazon that isn’t answered, Amazon will send you an email with a subject line that is a variation of “Sam has a question for you about Product X, can you help?” and the body would be something along the lines of “Dear foo, Sam wants to know if <insert question regarding Product X here>? Click here to respond to Sam and help her out!” In that context, you can easily see why people reply with such otherwise useless “answers.” When someone personally asks you a question you don’t know the answer to, responding with “sorry, I bought it for my husband as a gift and I don’t know,” is not just perfectly valid, it’s also the polite thing to do. But that answer is posted to the website in the genera Q&A as of you had viewed the question and then instead of passing on a question you had no answer for, you chose to reply with a useless answer.
  - wrycoder 6y ago
    Very interesting. I had not considered that possibility.

xyproto 6y ago

I have the same experience. Stack Overflow is not great when you try to achive something novel or do something new from scratch.

bluedino 6y ago
Can you guys link to an example?
- ducktective 6y ago
  stackoverflow.com
- abainbridge 6y ago
  A question I asked that springs to mind is https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37554058/fast-display-of-waveform-in-c-c https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37554058/fast-display-of... It was down voted to a negative score initially. People posted irrelevant/unhelpful comments that I had to hurriedly refute before the question was closed and deleted. To be fair, I have tweaked the question since, so it probably makes more sense than it did when I initially asked it. But I feel that is something the community should help with.
PaulHoule 6y ago
It's also a crap shoot when you try to solve a routine task. You might read through 1500 lines of people arguing before you get to the right answer, get an almost right answer, or no answer. If you are working in a language which has good documentation (say Python or Java) you are best off learning how to look up the right answers in the official manual quickly and let your competitors waste time with stack overflow.
jacobr1 6y ago
What is a way to fix this? Is this some part of an endless long-cycle of adoption for social networks over some kind of crossing-the-chasm style adoption curve? Or is there a structural way to fix it? Stackoverflow is better than its predecessors, but clearly is much less valuable now than for its first few 5 years or so.