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A single person answered 76k questions about SQL on StackOverflow
- alpineidyll3 5y agoHeroes are not born, they are made.
- jalbertoni 5y agoI guess he just really likes SQL. Can't blame him.
- jordemort 5y ago"Yo dawg I heard you like queries so I wrote 76,000 queries about queries so you can answer queries about queries."
- sam1r 5y agoTime flies fast when you’re having fun.
- mywittyname 5y agoThis is insane. They must be super-efficient because I can't give an SO-quality answer to a question in under an hour. I can see the appeal though. I used to spend my spare time in uni answering questions on SO. I actually learned a ton about how to conduct research, which is probably one the most useful skills I have in my toolbox.
- Arnt 5y agoYou can do it faster if you restrict yourself to questions that you already have researched. That is, to questions about bugs like ones you've fixed in your own code, or features you've found out how to use.
- jmartrican 5y agowhats ur username on SO?
- wizzwizz4 5y agoVoting by user is against the rules of Stack Overflow; if you intend to upvote this user's posts in order to reward them, the votes will be reverted and you might face disciplinary action.
- bool3max 5y agoHow would the platform distinguish those votes from regular ones?
- wizzwizz4 5y agoAs a network moderator, I actually know the answer to this, so I'm not going to openly speculate. Suffice to say, the rule is there for a reason (voting-by-user messes up the ordering of answers to each individual question), so please don't try a clever workaround just because you think you can.
- PascLeRasc 5y agoNavigating to an answer from the user's page only "shadow votes" it for you, it doesn't get counted.
- codehawke 5y agoAs a YouTuber, this has happened to me multiple times. It's fans or people trolling, they always remove the points though.
- brigandish 5y agoI've noticed a trend, some people answer with what should be a comment and then progressively edit their answer while hogging the attention of the questioner and anyone coming to view the page. For some reason people are loath to downvote an early answer without competition, even if it's rubbish.
- in9 5y agoYep. I Do this quite a lot in the Cross Validated site. It is the only way to get up votes or the correct answer check. If you take too much time to craft a well thought out answer, somebody will beat you to it and get all those. So in order to get the best of both worlds, I anser fast and then, if needed, improve on it.
- Jorengarenar 5y ago>For some reason people are loath to downvote an early answer without competition, even if it's rubbish. Yeah, that's because downvoting answers cost reputation. If not for that, people would be waaay more willing to downvote ... but that would also bring a practice of downvoting good answer made by others to boost your own
- Ronsenshi 5y agoIf I didn't know him from way back, I'd have thought that answers were done by some AI kind of like Github's Copilot.
- zxlk21e 5y agoThis person is an absolute legend. Gordon Linoff has written a series of books on data mining and sql as well: http://www.data-miners.com/bookstore.htm http://www.data-miners.com/bookstore.htm
- faizshah 5y agoI see they wrote a book on SQL too, probably not a bad way to develop an outline for a coding book.
- havermeyer 5y agoGordon is amazing, and it's almost impossible to beat him to an answer for certain types of questions :) I had the chance to meet him a few years back to talk through some new SQL features coming to BigQuery (I'm at Snowflake now). He had a lot of great insights into what could make the product better, and what he thought was missing relative to other OLAP databases.
- gfody 5y agoI like to answer sql questions too and it's like being in a quick draw match with Linoff around. he once blogged about how he's able to find all the new unanswered sql questions so quickly, iirc he made his own search
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoI remember John Skeet saying he would sometimes post a half finished answer just so he could get their first and deter other users then polish it later. I don't know what the point of that is.
- rendall 5y agoA Jon Skeet encounter made me quit Stack Overflow, never to look back. I asked a question, Jon Skeet came along with an answer that did not answer my question. But his non-answer got 200 upvotes. I went to meta to talk about how the reputation system is broken if that could happen. Skeet came along and accused me of changing my question, and a bunch of SO fanboys mocked me and told me if I want more reputation I had to try harder. That's when I knew SO had irreparably changed for the worse.
- ozim 5y agoOh I had some negative encounter with Jon Skeet as well. For a person that has so much notoriety seemed he was quite defensive about me pointing out his "non-answer" he gave to someone else. My situation was that I noticed that person asking was on a very basic level and he gave answer that was not correct in context of experience or what was actually asked. Even though technically correct.
- EForEndeavour 5y agoThis user Gordon Linoff hit one million reputation points on Stack Overflow in August 2020 (now one year later he's at 1.17M): https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/400506/congratulations-for-reaching-a-million-gordon-linoff https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/400506/congratulati... > This comes after an astonishing amount of 71,839 answers (and 0 questions!). He only joined in 2012, so that's an average of ~22.8 answers per day, every day, for the last 3144 days.To put perspective on the numbers, the second answerer on the site is Jon Skeet (our first millionaire) with 35K answers and then several others with 20k+
- jchw 5y agoAbsolutely astonishing. Answering questions on a Q&A site may not on its own be heroic, but at this scale it’s hard to see it as any less.
- deltree7 5y agoIf you look at many people's reddit/usenet/facebook comment history, 23 entries per day isn't much
- somehnguy 5y agoIt is when you do it for 3144 days in a row. Plus they're not just a bunch of 'lol' type low effort responses.
- bwship 5y agoHaha, yea, this isn't like having a snap streak of showing a funny face to your friend for 3,144 days. But alas, the internet at large probably thinks that is a harder feat than this.
- jchw 5y agoI don’t disagree with your statement at all. However, people who contribute useful edits to Wikipedia or high quality answers to Stack Overflow are doing a bit more work than your average Facebook poster :) sorry you’re getting buried on this, I assume your point wasn’t necessarily that it wasn’t more useful than that.
- gadders 5y agoGordon's bio from his company page: http://www.data-miners.com/linoff.htm http://www.data-miners.com/linoff.htm
- Traubenfuchs 5y agoNot mobile ready, blast from the past styling, just what you would expect from someone who could kill you with one line of SQL.
- y4mi 5y agoAt least it loads quickly. More important then mobile styling honestly.
- DoctorOW 5y agoI don't see why they're mutually exclusive. On mobile, they're equally important.
- ddingus 5y agoDoesn't that depend on the mobile user and device? Personally, a site like that doesn't impact me. I'm on a Note 8 and it's usable to a point where I will just do that with no worries. Everything comes at a cost too. Mobile styling may avoid a zoom op or two, but also usually comes with more navigation elements, or leaner overall content presentation.
- Zababa 5y agoI would argue that it's mobile ready. I only have to zoom a bit. No ads, no cookie popups, the text isn't that wide.
- giarc 5y agoWhen you are that good, you can get away with a page that looks like this http://www.data-miners.com/index.htm http://www.data-miners.com/index.htm
- zwieback 5y agoApparently they are good answers too. Talk about giving back to the community!
- Causality1 5y agoI've always been jealous of this kind of drive. To have the type of mind that is never bored of action and productivity.
- daok 5y agoHowever, it also mean that during that time this individual might not be working or spending time with his/her family, etc. Extreme performance like what he is achieving always come to the expense of something else.
- BikiniPrince 5y agoWhen I worked for a small television station I would pass the time answering questions about Linux, routers and other misc categories. Like building long haul 2.4ghz networks. Then I moved out of the control room and forgot I had an account.
- OJFord 5y agoIf you take `[sql]` off the search, many in the first page of results are tagged `mysql` and not `sql`.
- caturopath 5y agoThat is: https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=user%3A1144035+is%3Aanswer https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=user%3A1144035+is%3Aanswe... It seems like only all of the answers NOT tagged sql https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=user%3A1144035+-%5Bsql%5D+is%3Aanswer https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=user%3A1144035+-%5Bsql%5D... are sql-related.
- calltrak 5y agoI kind of regret not joining stackoverflow I am sure alot of people get hired off of it instead of having to jump through hoops doing technical interviews. I am looking for work now in golang and i just hate having to do interviews over and over again with each new contract.
- nickstinemates 5y agoIf you're looking for something to do, it's still a great way to hone your skills. Don't let being late to the party stop you.
- somenewaccount1 5y agoto be fair to yourself, I am a member on Stack Overflow and in the past 13 years, 0 interviewers have asked about or referenced Stack Overflow (other than jokes about how we use it to cheat). I hear leetcode is all the rage these days, in prepping for technical interviews.
- toyg 5y agoNah, hiring processes with technical steps will just happen regardless of one's standing on this or that site - after all, there is no guarantee you were the one posting... Unless you know someone inside who can vouch for you, you'll be tested.
- skytreader 5y agoI'd love to see actual data on this but I doubt that a lot of people get hired because of their online reputation. And by "hired" I mean it directly lead to a job offer instead of just getting your profile noticed and getting you started through the recruitment funnel. And of those that had an offer, how many actually took it? Being top 1% contributor in Go would tell a recruiter you know Go but the job probably involves other technologies you need to prove yourself in. Even in the rare case that you are top contributor in every technology on their checklist, the job might still involve domain knowledge that isn't purely tech. Or they'd want to evaluate your personality. Anecdote: not to brag given my skepticism above but so far the only online activity of mine that lead to a job offer was a Ruby Github repo on traditional AI. The catch: I am not a Rubyist and that repo was nothing more than a fork I'm studying. Long story short, I was looking for a job then, this consulting firm saw my Github profile so I got an interview. Onsite, the TL looked at my resume, visited my profile, saw the Ruby project, asked a few questions about it, and then recommended me for an offer with the hiring manager. I did not take the job because (a) they looked desperate for anyone in the process and (b) I would've bailed anyway because I already found a company I'm set on joining. Nothing more came of it other than this HN comment.
- goldenkey 5y agoAnd they paid him what? SO is for profit unlike Wikipedia, isn't it? https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/104947/is-stack-exchange-a-for-profit-company-if-so-how https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/104947/is-stack-exc... Thank you in advanced ;-)
- somenewaccount1 5y agoGuitar Hero doesn't pay either, but it doesn't stop people from spending eons of time on it. Some folks just do it for the thrill and the rep.
- goldenkey 5y agoI don't get your point. Are you defending SO as some sort of gaming company? Even gaming companies have tournaments with enormous prize pools and usually award their patrons in some way. Tournaments, teams and sponsorships are the lifeblood of professional gaming.
- scollet 5y agoSO speed-running any%
- somenewaccount1 5y agoIf you go to his profile on SO, you will see that he advertises his company. Also, I wasn't speaking about "professional gamers", I was speaking about every day people that forked over $100 for a game (or often $1,000 for many games) and then spend years playing it at home - unprofessionally, for no money. It's just how some people chose to spend their time because they themselves find the experience gratifying. And in his case, there is at least a small pittance of financial gain through advertising and publicly verifiable reputation.
- gavinray 5y agoHowever unfathomable it might be, he may just genuinely like to spend his time here on earth knowing that he's helping people. He clearly has expertise so I doubt he's poor or hurting for cash. Maybe an older fellow who has had enough of the grind and decides to spend his days sharing his knowledge with others. Someone like this needs SO as much as they need him, it's mutually beneficial. He impacts millions, they make money. Both get what they came for.
- oceanswave 5y agoHow much of that 1.8 billion did he get when SO sold?
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoSELECT 0;
- rchaud 5y agoHe was sharecropping on the land baron's property. Not his land, not his money.
- progre 5y agoAt the level he is at, he is clearly doing it because he likes doing it. Maybe to build a little bit of recognition to help sell his books, but I doubt that it's a big factor.
- TheCapn 5y agoHeh, I had to go back through some of my old questions and sure enough Gordon has helped me before. I had to laugh because my comment below his answer was that he figured out my problem so fast that StackOverflow wouldn't even let me accept his answer as it was too soon after posting the question.
- johnmato 5y agoThat is quite insane number to catch up especially in Stack Overflow; probably don't need to google to find solutions.
- weavie 5y agoWhat kind of setup do you need to have in order to answer questions on StackOverflow? From time to time I think it would be a useful exercise, but it's really hard to find questions that haven't already been answered. I'm thinking you probably need some form of alerting system to notify you as soon as a question comes in.
- dehrmann 5y agoMost of the questions that get asked are homework questions that were poorly asked and lack much research. "What have you tried?" is a common first comment.
- ggregoire 5y agoYou select a tag, select "Newest" and then manually refresh the page. For instance: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/sql https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/sql On the home page you can manage a list of "Watched Tags". If you add SQL it gives you a bookmark to the page I linked above.
- ggktk 5y agoLooks like they also have RSS feeds (ctrl+f Newest sql questions feed)
- they4kman 5y agoYou can create saved searches, like sorting by new for a tag you're interested in. I don't have email notifications setup, but from time to time I visit my saved search for pytest questions -- which is a subject less inundated with homework questions and more with people trying to do their work, unsure of how to integrate their ideas with a testing framework. Though, some of my most popular answers have come from digging a little deeper on an older question and adding a better write-up, or simply answering a question for a newer version of the technology at hand. When it's a technology you use (or had used) everyday, it's easier to get a sense of the answers you would appreciate if you'd stumbled there from Google
- dyingkneepad 5y ago
- marto1 5y agoAnd hasn't asked any questions of his own. Quite strange to not be curious about something SO could answer for the past 10 years.
- mousepilot 5y agoI love stackoverflow, use it all the time often from generic goggle searches, and I don't even have an account, its just that useful of a site. I suspect I would probably not answer very many questions due to others simply having better answers than me.
- kthejoker2 5y agoIt's funny I knew it was Gordon without even opening the article - quite the mad lad - there should be a special of honor for beating him to the draw on SO .. ! (I think I've got 3?) He also has to be in the top 10 in terms of comments on questions and answers, he's everywhere :)
- dekken_ 5y agoLink required a captcha, Fuck that
- system2 5y agoIf you aren't used to captcha by now, I am not sure how you are using the internet.
- dekken_ 5y agoI'm not a slave.
- rastafang 5y agoYeah, web developers need to realize that they put captchas even where not needed, and Google takes advantage of that.
- spookthesunset 5y agoUnless you work for those companies and know what risks and attack vectors they are trying to mitigate, it’s really hard to criticize their placement of captchas.
- Omnius 5y agoNice try robot!
- dekken_ 5y ago
- rasengan 5y agoThat means this person has single handedly improved the global social knowledge-space about SQL and improved the world. Impressive isn't even strong enough to describe what this is. Thank you, Mr. Gordon Linoff for advancing humanity.
- h00kwurm 5y agoHoping that Gordon sees this, he’s a wonderful person. helpful to the nth degree as his dedication to answering questions as is so demonstrated here in earnest. all your recognition is well-deserved. it’s been a pleasure to work with you (and nice job solving the interview qs i give to others in pure sql from the other side of my desk)
- gfody 5y agohe's too busy answering questions - he answered five more since this was posted
- system2 5y agoNot sure what his intention is/was, but I am assuming he also gets clients thru this. Many blog posts out there uses this technique to attract potential clients.
- melenaos 5y agoAnd I am here wondering if my SQL server needs an upgrade, index rebuild, restructure indexes and keys or use other tables for long term rows. I wish I could understand better the SQL Server beast
- audiometry 5y agoThere’s a similar guy, jezreal(?) who answers pandas ( python module) prolifically with beautiful idiomatic solutions.
- maleldil 5y ago> jezreal(?) jezrael: https://stackoverflow.com/users/2901002/jezrael https://stackoverflow.com/users/2901002/jezrael
- audiometry 5y agoPatron Saint of Pandas
- sbuttgereit 5y agoI've not seen Gordon Linoff, but usually when I have some sort of question about PostgreSQL minutia, I find that Erwin Brandstetter (https://meta.stackoverflow.com/users/939860/erwin-brandstetter?tab=profile https://meta.stackoverflow.com/users/939860/erwin-brandstett...) usually has posted very detailed and solid answers when it comes to Stack Overflow. I have to say, I'm usually not searching Stack Overflow specifically when I'm looking for information, I'm usually in a general search engine that happens to show me StackOverflow answers. But the high frequency that I see and am in fact aided by Erwin Brandstetter's posting of good answers is certainly worthy of a call out here. My thanks to Erwin!
- fuy 5y agoCouldn't agree more! Erwin's SO answers are incredible source of knowledge on Postgresql usage, especially things like plpgsql. I benefited from his answers a lot, thanks to Erwin.
- dane-pgp 5y agoA single person? It's kind of offensive to assume his relationship status like that...
- cjbprime 5y ago> A single person answered 76k questions about SQL on StackOverflow TFW you forget to add the WHERE clause.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Matthias1 5y agoAm I the only one for whom the link is broken? I get sent to a Captcha, but after completing it, I get redirected to stackoverflow.com.
- ziotom78 5y agoIt's the same for me
- rendall 5y agoSame
- unixsheikh 5y agoNo, it's useless for me too.
- trevcanhuman 5y agoOP probably meant to link here [0]. (taken from EForEndeavour's comment) [0] https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/400506/congratulations-for-reaching-a-million-gordon-linoff https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/400506/congratulati...
- busymom0 5y agoSame for me.
- dang 5y agoSorry all - I recently deployed code to follow redirects and like all such internet things there are of course a lot of corner cases. Changed back to https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=user%3A1144035+%5Bsql%5D+is%3Aanswer https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=user%3A1144035+%5Bsql%5D+... now (from https://stackoverflow.com/nocaptcha?s=f29968b0-76eb-45d9-8d63-95c38f69a4a4 https://stackoverflow.com/nocaptcha?s=f29968b0-76eb-45d9-8d6...).
- markus_zhang 5y agoI didn't read the article but this must be Gordon, the guy who answered every SQL question I asked, within very short period of time. This guy is a legend. Love him.
- croes 5y agoHow many SQL questions are there in total? Could it discourage others to participate if few top posters answer too many questions too fast?
- bcx 5y agoImpressive achievement. But for fun, as a skeptic, let's assume he outsourced some of the work, and then serves as an editor. How would we know the difference between this, and him answering the questions himself? Would we care?
- INTPenis 5y agoAccording to some people in this HN thread he's also very fast at answering questions. So not sure he's out sourced it, but he might be using their APIs to get notifications of certain questions.
- tonymet 5y agooutsourced
- topherPedersen 5y agoI see that Gordon wrote a book about SQL. Definitely just picked up a copy with one-click: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470099518 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470099518
- Ziggy_Zaggy 5y agoThis individual is amazing. Thanks for being a badazz.
- aliswe 5y agoAt this scale, I believe people should start asking him through some kind of Structured Query Language instead...
- husamia 5y agofull time job
- amai 5y agoIsn‘t it possible that several persons are sharing the same login?