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StackOverflow: A Teeming Beehive of Programming Q&A

15 points by qhoxie 18y ago

biohacker42 18y ago
You can run out of stack even if your recursion is guaranteed to terminate. The stack is not infinite. That's why when dealing with very large data sets you might want to prefer iteration over recursion. Lastly, unless you're allocating (on the stack) in your loop, the loop all by itself will not overflow the stack, even if it never terminates.
- qhoxie 18y ago
  Good information, but you might want to read the article.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    The name StackOverflow refers to an infinite loop or recursion in the programming languages C or C++... I did read the article, the above is what I'm responding to.
    - qhoxie 18y ago
      Sorry if I mistook you, I though it was just a post based on the title.
- daleharvey 18y ago
  of course if you use tail recursion you dont need to increase the stack at all
jcapote 18y ago
s/Programming/Windows Programming/
- Dobbs 18y ago
  Joel and Jeff are both .NET programmers. This does have a noticeable effect on the initial seeding of data. The site though is set up to allow any form of programming. As Kylec stated go answer and ask non-Windows programming language questions. Make the place better.
- kylec 18y ago
  You're right, there is a significant bias towards C#, ASP, and .NET. Why not help change it? I'm sure there's room on the site for everyone.
  - jrockway 18y ago
    Why not help change it? Because non-Windows programmers already have plenty of better, ad-free places to go for help.
    - d0mine 18y ago
      Could you name some of these places?
nuggien 18y ago
"rock star programmers"? Really? It takes rock star programmers 4-5 months to do a digg style q&a site?
- jrockway 18y ago
  I wouldn't criticize them for this. They probably had other things to do in that time.
  - nuggien 18y ago
    Wrong. "But we’re only human, and there are only three of us — and exactly one full time person (me)." http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/07/stack-overflow-private-beta-begins/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/07/stack-overflow-private... Atwood was on it fulltime. Even with one guy, I'd expect it to take no more than 3-4 weeks to finish all the features that their beta site has right now, minus the site design.
    - jrockway 18y ago
      I'd expect it to take no more than 3-4 weeks to finish all the features It's easy to "expect". It's hard to "do".
      - nuggien 18y ago
        every part of that site is trivial to do. I'd expect "rock star" programmers to not miss deadlines that badly.
- ricree 18y ago
  As I understand it, most of the people involved weren't working on the site full time.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - 18y ago

15 points by qhoxie 18y ago

You can run out of stack even if your recursion is guaranteed to terminate. The stack is not infinite. That's why when dealing with very large data sets you might want to prefer iteration over recursion. Lastly, unless you're allocating (on the stack) in your loop, the loop all by itself will not overflow the stack, even if it never terminates.

qhoxie 18y ago
Good information, but you might want to read the article.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  The name StackOverflow refers to an infinite loop or recursion in the programming languages C or C++... I did read the article, the above is what I'm responding to.
  - qhoxie 18y ago
    Sorry if I mistook you, I though it was just a post based on the title.
daleharvey 18y ago
of course if you use tail recursion you dont need to increase the stack at all

jcapote 18y ago

s/Programming/Windows Programming/

Dobbs 18y ago
Joel and Jeff are both .NET programmers. This does have a noticeable effect on the initial seeding of data. The site though is set up to allow any form of programming. As Kylec stated go answer and ask non-Windows programming language questions. Make the place better.
kylec 18y ago
You're right, there is a significant bias towards C#, ASP, and .NET. Why not help change it? I'm sure there's room on the site for everyone.
- jrockway 18y ago
  Why not help change it? Because non-Windows programmers already have plenty of better, ad-free places to go for help.
  - d0mine 18y ago
    Could you name some of these places?

nuggien 18y ago

"rock star programmers"? Really? It takes rock star programmers 4-5 months to do a digg style q&a site?

jrockway 18y ago
I wouldn't criticize them for this. They probably had other things to do in that time.
- nuggien 18y ago
  Wrong. "But we’re only human, and there are only three of us — and exactly one full time person (me)." http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/07/stack-overflow-private-beta-begins/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/07/stack-overflow-private... Atwood was on it fulltime. Even with one guy, I'd expect it to take no more than 3-4 weeks to finish all the features that their beta site has right now, minus the site design.
  - jrockway 18y ago
    I'd expect it to take no more than 3-4 weeks to finish all the features It's easy to "expect". It's hard to "do".
    - nuggien 18y ago
      every part of that site is trivial to do. I'd expect "rock star" programmers to not miss deadlines that badly.
ricree 18y ago
As I understand it, most of the people involved weren't working on the site full time.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- 18y ago