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1. web search (google/bing/ddg) - often that will lead to SO, but also turn up some other relevant forums. 2. docs on package X. If I'm reasonably certain a pr
by mgkimsal 6y ago
1. web search (google/bing/ddg) - often that will lead to SO, but also turn up some other relevant forums.
2. docs on package X. If I'm reasonably certain a problem is with a specific package, I'll search for a forum or issue tracker (often GitHub) for that package.
3. language-specific community. there are some lang-spec sites/forums that help with the nitty-gritty sometimes that SO and similar sites don't always get (or, more often, SO is out of date but still marked 'best').
That SO often tends to be where you end up doesn't, imo, mean you should always start there. If the same SO links are at the top of many search engines, that's probably a very good indicator, but you almost always need to broaden out when researching.
- sumtechguy 6y agoand lord help you when you are on page 6 of a google search and not finding it... :(
- bckr 6y agoI would take that as evidence that I'm not doing something common, which is soft evidence that I'm not doing it the right way. I haven't had to do anything really novel, mostly I just have to do various forms of plumbing.
- sumtechguy 6y agoOh no disagreement there. I usually end up there because of some odd error code from some code someone else wrote. If I am lucky I have the source code (not always). But 99% of the time whatever you are doing wrong is in the first 5 or so posts returned. But you get desperate sometimes :)