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I hypothesise that the majority of active SO users are beginner or intermediate programmers. I was using SO quite frequently when I started learning how to prog
by tastyminerals2 5y ago
I hypothesise that the majority of active SO users are beginner or intermediate programmers. I was using SO quite frequently when I started learning how to program. Now, I don’t have a need neither do I participate in their surveys. My senior colleague does not use it as well, moreover he doesn’t even have time for that. You can occasionally look up a few things but that’s that. In comparison, just three four years ago it was my goto website.
What you see in the results of their survey is a sample of the active users who are predominantly between this and that age nothing more and nothing less.
- matkoniecz 5y agoAlso, I suspect that younger people are more likely to have time to fill survey as requested by some company/website/organization. With older people having less time and seeing less point in doing it.
- anyfoo 5y agoAs an individual contributor over 35, I land on Slack Overflow about once a month I’d guess (it feels like even less, though it may well be more, if I do without consciously remembering). The problems I need to solve have become so specialized and niche that it’s often not worth googling. They mostly rather need reading existing code or talking to people. That’s not to say that I know everything after those decades. But for the things that are more “I forgot the details, yet again” (or “I didn’t really know that detail but now it has become important”), such as for example “what are the exact semantics of that uncommon assembly instruction” or “what does the C standard define here”, it’s well advised to just look into an official source instead.
- anyfoo 5y agoOops, that “Slack Overflow” typo was unintentional, I swear. (But I missed the window where I could still edit it.)