3 ms·

I have a hunch that this tendency to look up SO rather than actual language/API docs is prevalent more in some ecosystems than in others. For eg, with Rust and

I have a hunch that this tendency to look up SO rather than actual language/API docs is prevalent more in some ecosystems than in others. For eg, with Rust and Go projects I would invariably read the actual docs (which I find are very accessible to read) as compared to when I write Python or C++ where I'm happy to SO my way through my task. However, what I've found is that reading the actual docs is better for multiple reasons: 1) it reinforces your learning / memory via spaced repitition 2) you tend to glean some extra, related useful info from the docs. These days I try and put myself in a no SO straitjacket as far as possible, forcing myself to read the actual docs instead.

cerved 6y ago
I would definitely agree that it depends on the strength/weakness of the docs/SO for that ecosystem. For example. MDN had terrific docs for JavaScript and web apis. Things are discreetly segmented and this easy to navigate. Terrific, up to date information about how to things, why as well as great information on the caveats of the API (what works where and what fails where). The SO answers are often a hack on how to implement it in an outdated framework. And ten variations that are "faster". But you might still end up there because you're not sure how to look it up directly in the docs. Maybe you do an SO layover. .Net is similar, although the official documentation suffers from marketing speak pollution, where it's hard to find answers because Microsoft names their APIs by randomly permutating ASP, Entity, Core and Framework when making things. Add to that all the trashy noob doc sites, codeproject, csharpcorner... that pollute search. Both ecosystems suffer on SO because of SOs inability to stay up to date with a changing API. A great example is all the Python 2 answers. Then you have ecosystems like Scala, which has terrific documentation in source code. As well as official docs that are reasonably easy to navigate. But it's not a huge ecosystem, so sometimes it's hard to find answers to questions that haven't been asked. Then SO provides a valuable platform to get those answers. Sometimes from the maintainers themselves. All in all, SO often offers a good complement to official docs, ranging from excellent to subpar. Personally I wished it was better at providing up to date information.

cerved 6y ago

I would definitely agree that it depends on the strength/weakness of the docs/SO for that ecosystem. For example. MDN had terrific docs for JavaScript and web apis. Things are discreetly segmented and this easy to navigate. Terrific, up to date information about how to things, why as well as great information on the caveats of the API (what works where and what fails where). The SO answers are often a hack on how to implement it in an outdated framework. And ten variations that are "faster". But you might still end up there because you're not sure how to look it up directly in the docs. Maybe you do an SO layover. .Net is similar, although the official documentation suffers from marketing speak pollution, where it's hard to find answers because Microsoft names their APIs by randomly permutating ASP, Entity, Core and Framework when making things. Add to that all the trashy noob doc sites, codeproject, csharpcorner... that pollute search. Both ecosystems suffer on SO because of SOs inability to stay up to date with a changing API. A great example is all the Python 2 answers. Then you have ecosystems like Scala, which has terrific documentation in source code. As well as official docs that are reasonably easy to navigate. But it's not a huge ecosystem, so sometimes it's hard to find answers to questions that haven't been asked. Then SO provides a valuable platform to get those answers. Sometimes from the maintainers themselves. All in all, SO often offers a good complement to official docs, ranging from excellent to subpar. Personally I wished it was better at providing up to date information.