9 ms·

here’s a classic SO thread: OP: “how can I accomplish X doing Y?” top voted response: “I wouldnt do X by Y. Instead, I’d consider Z. It’ll do everything X by

here’s a classic SO thread: OP: “how can I accomplish X doing Y?” top voted response: “I wouldnt do X by Y. Instead, I’d consider Z. It’ll do everything X by Y would do, plus these other things.” buried sub comment to top voted response: “that’s not what he asked, to do X by Y (exact solution provided)” then 10 comments blasting the guy who actually answered the question for not doing it the way the top voted answer did it.

Eduard 3y ago
sprinkle in a 100K+ reputation user commenting "this is easily answered with `man Y`" — oblivious to the fact that Y's manpage is a 188 page monster, and manpages being awkward to search in. Case in point: https://stackoverflow.com/q/19622198 https://stackoverflow.com/q/19622198
- Culonavirus 3y ago
  Here's a question maybe someone can answer for me, or maybe I'm just stupid and other people don't need it, but... What's up with the "man Y" aversion towards the usage of examples in the man pages? I don't expect some behemoth like ffmpeg to have a billion examples in the man files, but damn, every other reasonably sized CLI app would be so much easier to use, if you had just a dozen or two of examples at the end of the man file.
  - no92 3y ago
    tldr pages do exactly this. https://tldr.sh https://tldr.sh
    - djmips 3y ago
      bless you - I had no idea this existed!
  - odysseus 3y ago
    brew install tldr tldr ffmpeg
  - Qwertious 3y ago
    `man` is "a documentation". It turns out there's more than one type of documentation, but lots of man-page writers didn't get the memo.
- firefoxd 3y ago
  I may be missing something, but the top answer is pretty good. And the comments even explain why searching for an answer on google might be difficult, and suggests how to.
paradite 3y ago
I'm assuming you are talking about XY problem? https://xyproblem.info/ https://xyproblem.info/
- dragontamer 3y ago
  They're talking about the XY problem-problem. The problem when other programmers mistakenly think you have an XY problem and ignore your words. Sometimes, the original poster is not mistaken. Especially when an expert asks a question, there's a reason for it. Assuming the expert to be a beginner who hasn't tried easier solutions is degrading, and forces experts off the site. Actively insulting your userbase, especially your expert-level userbase, is a bad idea. It leads to StackOverflow falling and collapsing over the years.
  - Rapzid 3y ago
    I was learning Golang nearly a decade ago while participating in a performance competition.. Asking questions about unsafe in Golang Nuts was nearly rage inducing. IMHO Copilot Chat has picked up on these bad habits.
    - lelanthran 3y ago
      I've noticed a similar tendency in ChatGPT (answering a question that was never asked), but at least in ChatGPT it doesn't act all condescending towards you. I literally cannot remember when last SO was useful time, due to the false positive identification of the XY problem. At least with ChatGPT, it's much faster to get it to answer the question asked and not the question that was not asked.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    the XY problem-problem I never saw this term before, but it is perfect. So many times I have experienced it when asking questions in mature tech domains. It is so frustrating. Frequently, my question is asked poorly from the view of an expert, so they sweep it aside as not a real problem. Only after getting help (from comments) to provide more info or improve the writing, does the expert suddenly agree it is an issue. This is also why I no longer waste my time raising bug tickets for open source projects. You just get shouted down and feel terrible about yourself. I raised many "WONTFIX" bugs in my career against open source projects. What a waste of my time and a harm to my self esteem.
Eisenstein 3y ago
The thing is that oftentimes people who want to do 'X by Y' are actually asking how to accomplish Q. They think 'X by Y' is the solution and get hit by a roadblock, not knowing that it will not help them and they are wasting time. This is called the XY problem and is extremely common on tech related forums and mailing lists. * https://xyproblem.info/ https://xyproblem.info/
- cwillu 3y ago
  Telling people they're doing the wrong thing is extremely common. People actually wanting the wrong thing is common, but not _extremely_ common, and the mismatch is one of the more rage inducing things on the internet.
- shriek 3y ago
  Often the better answer is to just explain what's being asked by strongly encouraging them in the Z direction. Sometimes people just want to understand what's happening behind the scenes rather than just looking to solve for Y.
  - berkes 3y ago
    But that's a different question. And should be asked different. "I'm trying to learn foo.js and attemt to do so by porting Tetris to it. I know foo.js is a terrible option for a game. So. How can I write to the canvas from foo.js?" Is often answered properly, if only because to many it's a nice puzzle. "How can I write to the canvas fro foo.js?" Is different in that it will attract a lot of people explaining that foo.js deliberately did not allow writing to the canvas, because Z"
    - dan-0 3y ago
      This is part of the problem. You know your constraints, other people do not, but like to assume they do. So you end up having to write a defensive argument about your problem rather than just plainly asking your real question. This may help less experienced engineers not understanding their problem set, but for a more experienced engineer it's absolutely obnoxious to think of all the ways to defend my question so I don't have to deal with a rush of "oh but you should do this instead" answers getting up voted that don't actually answer my question, then asking to accept the answer. To one set of users it's possibly helpful, to another it's useless if not also condescending, often condescending to both sets. The bottom line is now, SO is so filled with these types of responses, I can't expect to get a very specific question answered, which is really the only reason I'd ask a question in the first place, so why use it? There are plenty chat groups now via Slack and discord in my field where I can get much more direct answers. People aren't worried about getting down voted for a bad question, people aren't giving low quality answers to boost their points. So for me, SO is practically dead except for the occasional obscure error message that I can query for there.
boyka 3y ago
It seems like most of us all have the same issue with SO. However, is there a viable alternative?
- whstl 3y ago
  ChatGPT has replaced most of my usage of StackOverflow/Google. It probably won't last forever without people generating new answers somewhere else, but it answers a lot of things correctly, and the things it gets wrong are easy enough to verify. I really hope ChatGPT causes StackOverflow to change.
  - gvx 3y ago
    > I really hope ChatGPT causes StackOverflow to change. It already has, and not for the better. SO is currently awash with nonsensical answers that are clearly the result of feeding the question into ChatGPT. Not to mention questions like this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/76748781/how-pythons-built-in-sum-function-works-on-dict-values#76748781 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/76748781/how-pythons-bui...
    - whstl 3y ago
      Well, perhaps that's what moderation should be focusing on blocking then, rather than driving away humans (as was mentioned a lot by other answers in this thread).
jalapenos 3y ago
Usually prefixed by a condescending "why would you want to Y?"
- IIsi50MHz 3y ago
  Or a befuddled asking of the same "Why?". Or an honestly curious asking. Yes, there are plenty of rude replies, but sometimes it helps to assume what somebody really means is they failed to do a context switch. Exchanging more details can help turn a 'madness' into a method. Even if they were outright rude, doing this can lead to an answer that might not otherwise be given (even though that answer may be provided by someone else).
revskill 3y ago
Yes, it's stupid af. Rather to keep silence, than to answer indirectly the quesiton. Or even if you want to suggest "another problem", make it as indirect (not the accepted answer).
CodeCompost 3y ago
The impression I get from commenters is that somehow they think their careers are tied to StackOverflow points. Trying their best to downvote correct answers and promoting their own in order to further their agenda.
- JimDabell 3y ago
  Downvoting costs points.
- Karunamon 3y ago
  SO ran a careers site for a while, and as a part of that, provided a resume/profile page upon which you were encouraged to share your score and/or your own questions and answers. I wonder if there was actually something to that…
newaccount74 3y ago
The very popular Zalgo answer is a perfect example of this problem [1] The user asks a question that can be answered quite easily, and dozens of people post answers claiming that this is the wrong way to do it and that they should use some other tech to solve the problem. Some people on Stack Overflow care more about showing off how smart they are rather than answering questions, and I think the point system attracts these people. [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags#1732454 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open...
- cowthulhu 3y ago
  Hilariously, the accepted (I assume by default, not by the asker) answer is flagrantly breaking, like, half a dozen rules and guidelines… but because it’s cynically and unhelpfully crapping on a newbie, it stays up. Or maybe there’s a good reason for it to stay up, but at a glance it sure isn’t a good look. I actually think SO is a great site and resource, but I also think a lot of that is despite the bitter old timers in the community, not because of them.
  - underdeserver 3y ago
    Oh come on, it's not crapping on a newbie. It's a funny comment that serves as a reflection of the days and weeks this guy spent debugging these kinds of systems. As someone who was a newbie at the time when it was posted, who was looking for a way to parse HTML, I took away that it's just really the wrong way to go about it. I didn't feel crapped on at all.
    - stavros 3y ago
      The question isn't looking to parse HTML (or XML). Regexes are inappropriate for HTML because they can't adequately match the starting and ending tags, not because of black magic. The OP isn't looking to do that, so regexes look like a perfectly acceptable way to go.
      - 3y ago
enriquto 3y ago
> here’s a classic SO thread My favorite example, from "TeX stackexchange" : https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/100574/really-wide-hat-symbol https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/100574/really-wide-h... Quote from the actual answer (which is not the bogus accepted one): The question wasn't "should it be done?" But, for the same reason men climb mountains, "could it be done?" The answer, [...] is yes. Thus, we introduce [...]
martin_a 3y ago
I'd like to add the "in jQuery you can do it MUCH easier like this: [...]" when you are searching for Vanilla JS solutions.
JimDabell 3y ago
Which is the correct response to this question? > How do I shoot myself in the foot? I’m pointing the gun at my foot and pulling the trigger, but nothing is happening. Is it: > A common reason for guns not firing is that they aren’t loaded. Try loading the gun and trying again. …or is it: > Woah, hang on a sec! What are you trying to achieve exactly? It seems like you are doing something very wrong here. I’m sure there’s a better way to do whatever it is you are trying to do. There are many technical questions that give the very strong impression that somebody is asking how to shoot themselves in the foot. It’s not responsible to blindly answer the question regardless of the consequences. Yes, people sometimes overcorrect for this which can be annoying, but they are only trying to steer newbies away from shooting themselves in the foot.
- gvx 3y ago
  How I usually try to answer these kinds of questions is "Shooting yourself is generally not a good idea, for these reasons. If you really want to do it, you can try loading your gun and pulling the trigger again, but a better alternative might be to take off your shoe by untying your shoelaces and carefully pulling on your shoe, following the curve of your foot." But it's hard! On the one hand, you don't want to teach people to do the wrong thing (especially not on SO, where answers are often copied wholesale and pasted into production code), but also not answering the question as asked usually doesn't help the OP at all. If it's not clear what they're trying to achieve I usually leave a comment asking for clarification rather than answering, though.
- Nursie 3y ago
  > There are many technical questions that give the very strong impression that somebody is asking how to shoot themselves in the foot. Sure, but some of the stuff I've looked up in the past is answered with helpful comments like "You won't need to do this, your CA will do this for you" or "this is handled by your certificate verification stack, you don't need to be involved in this stuff". Well, thanks, but I'm actually implementing both of those things right now and I'm having an annoying issue with figuring out how the API for the (very popular but IMHO poorly documented) library I'm using for part of it hangs together. > Yes, people sometimes overcorrect for this which can be annoying, but they are only trying to steer newbies away from shooting themselves in the foot. I think sometimes its because comparatively the respondents are newbies, and are repeating received wisdom.
mihaaly 3y ago
This is precisely what kept me away asking anything on SO. It is so much easier and quicker searching on or figuring out by myself than preparing a question defensively and then answering all the questions about why asking about that thing and the road getting there. When I find a straight and relevant answer that is great, I like browsing SO, but I wouldn't dream having a question just to find myself in a word duel with some very eager contributor steering me into his favourite domain. I want to get ahead with a task not being in the quest of finding The Ultimate Solution or having a social life over interesting and related topics.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bjornasm 3y ago
That is incredibly annoying to find when you search for help for your problem. While maybe OP could/should do something else, you have great reasons to do X by Y. Ofcourse if you make your own question about doing X by Y you get referred to the other question and have yours closed.
xertopertha 3y ago
Should get rid of the reward system -- or at least reform it drastically to discourage pettiness. An accepted solution should not result in a reward to anybody. Somebody just starting to learn a topic posts a basic question and gets an answer from an old timer - and they both get rewarded! for what? There seems to be an army of "moderators" who are ready to pounce on easy questions and they end the answer by reminding the OP that he should upvote or accept the answer! Did any of them added anything to the knowledge base? You can get excellent answers to basic questions from ChatGPT anyway. Also they won't allow new members (perhaps experts) from commenting until they have picked up enough credits yet. The whole system is downright silly.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
o1y32 3y ago
My experience is that the "real" answer depends on the situation. Sometimes one really should use the alternative (e.g. cleaner, more general solution, most updated API), while other times they should address the original question as is (e.g. avoid additional dependency/third-party library). This is one I ran into recently: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30196175/const-methods-in-golang https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30196175/const-methods-i... The question is very clearly formed. The accepted (and currently top) answer does a good job. But at one point the other answer which is badly worded and confusing was at the top. And I don't think it should ever get the top position of the answers.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
SO changed its policies a long time ago already... they don't want to answer your questions. They hate your questions (and by extension, they hate you!). It's ok, you deserve the hate. After all, you're asking the wrong questions. They want questions that are "textbook-worthy" or possibly "encyclopedia worthy". They're on record as having said this officially. If programming and technology is just messier than that, if it's more complicated than that, and you still have questions that don't fit because of it... well, fuck you. They don't exist to answer your questions, they exist to answer great questions that they can use to build up this pretty little sight that now has some purpose other than whatever it was you thought you were using it for. The Z guy, he's playing their game. He's awesome. You, you need to be punished until you comply.
zero_shift 3y ago
This reminds me of my last ever SO question. It was many years ago, so I might be misremembering some details, but: I wanted some information on figuring out what texture serialisation was supported on a given client for a WebGL app. I needed to know this because I was optimising the client and had to deal with very large textures (it was an AR / augmented reality context). Cue a barrage of comments along the lines of "you shouldn't need to do this" "the abstraction means you can simply assume the GPU has infinite texture memory" (!) "just provide all the formats and let the GPU bridge figure it out". Then the question had a downvote and that was that, cast to the bottom of the pile. It seemed to me everyone responding to my question had this assumption "questioners are morons". A moron asking about texture serialisation is a paradox, ergo the question must have a faulty premise.

Eduard 3y ago

sprinkle in a 100K+ reputation user commenting "this is easily answered with `man Y`" — oblivious to the fact that Y's manpage is a 188 page monster, and manpages being awkward to search in. Case in point: https://stackoverflow.com/q/19622198 https://stackoverflow.com/q/19622198

Culonavirus 3y ago
Here's a question maybe someone can answer for me, or maybe I'm just stupid and other people don't need it, but... What's up with the "man Y" aversion towards the usage of examples in the man pages? I don't expect some behemoth like ffmpeg to have a billion examples in the man files, but damn, every other reasonably sized CLI app would be so much easier to use, if you had just a dozen or two of examples at the end of the man file.
- no92 3y ago
  tldr pages do exactly this. https://tldr.sh https://tldr.sh
  - djmips 3y ago
    bless you - I had no idea this existed!
- odysseus 3y ago
  brew install tldr tldr ffmpeg
- Qwertious 3y ago
  `man` is "a documentation". It turns out there's more than one type of documentation, but lots of man-page writers didn't get the memo.
firefoxd 3y ago
I may be missing something, but the top answer is pretty good. And the comments even explain why searching for an answer on google might be difficult, and suggests how to.

paradite 3y ago

I'm assuming you are talking about XY problem? https://xyproblem.info/ https://xyproblem.info/

dragontamer 3y ago
They're talking about the XY problem-problem. The problem when other programmers mistakenly think you have an XY problem and ignore your words. Sometimes, the original poster is not mistaken. Especially when an expert asks a question, there's a reason for it. Assuming the expert to be a beginner who hasn't tried easier solutions is degrading, and forces experts off the site. Actively insulting your userbase, especially your expert-level userbase, is a bad idea. It leads to StackOverflow falling and collapsing over the years.
- Rapzid 3y ago
  I was learning Golang nearly a decade ago while participating in a performance competition.. Asking questions about unsafe in Golang Nuts was nearly rage inducing. IMHO Copilot Chat has picked up on these bad habits.
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    I've noticed a similar tendency in ChatGPT (answering a question that was never asked), but at least in ChatGPT it doesn't act all condescending towards you. I literally cannot remember when last SO was useful time, due to the false positive identification of the XY problem. At least with ChatGPT, it's much faster to get it to answer the question asked and not the question that was not asked.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  the XY problem-problem I never saw this term before, but it is perfect. So many times I have experienced it when asking questions in mature tech domains. It is so frustrating. Frequently, my question is asked poorly from the view of an expert, so they sweep it aside as not a real problem. Only after getting help (from comments) to provide more info or improve the writing, does the expert suddenly agree it is an issue. This is also why I no longer waste my time raising bug tickets for open source projects. You just get shouted down and feel terrible about yourself. I raised many "WONTFIX" bugs in my career against open source projects. What a waste of my time and a harm to my self esteem.

Eisenstein 3y ago

The thing is that oftentimes people who want to do 'X by Y' are actually asking how to accomplish Q. They think 'X by Y' is the solution and get hit by a roadblock, not knowing that it will not help them and they are wasting time. This is called the XY problem and is extremely common on tech related forums and mailing lists. * https://xyproblem.info/ https://xyproblem.info/

cwillu 3y ago
Telling people they're doing the wrong thing is extremely common. People actually wanting the wrong thing is common, but not _extremely_ common, and the mismatch is one of the more rage inducing things on the internet.
shriek 3y ago
Often the better answer is to just explain what's being asked by strongly encouraging them in the Z direction. Sometimes people just want to understand what's happening behind the scenes rather than just looking to solve for Y.
- berkes 3y ago
  But that's a different question. And should be asked different. "I'm trying to learn foo.js and attemt to do so by porting Tetris to it. I know foo.js is a terrible option for a game. So. How can I write to the canvas from foo.js?" Is often answered properly, if only because to many it's a nice puzzle. "How can I write to the canvas fro foo.js?" Is different in that it will attract a lot of people explaining that foo.js deliberately did not allow writing to the canvas, because Z"
  - dan-0 3y ago
    This is part of the problem. You know your constraints, other people do not, but like to assume they do. So you end up having to write a defensive argument about your problem rather than just plainly asking your real question. This may help less experienced engineers not understanding their problem set, but for a more experienced engineer it's absolutely obnoxious to think of all the ways to defend my question so I don't have to deal with a rush of "oh but you should do this instead" answers getting up voted that don't actually answer my question, then asking to accept the answer. To one set of users it's possibly helpful, to another it's useless if not also condescending, often condescending to both sets. The bottom line is now, SO is so filled with these types of responses, I can't expect to get a very specific question answered, which is really the only reason I'd ask a question in the first place, so why use it? There are plenty chat groups now via Slack and discord in my field where I can get much more direct answers. People aren't worried about getting down voted for a bad question, people aren't giving low quality answers to boost their points. So for me, SO is practically dead except for the occasional obscure error message that I can query for there.

boyka 3y ago

It seems like most of us all have the same issue with SO. However, is there a viable alternative?

whstl 3y ago
ChatGPT has replaced most of my usage of StackOverflow/Google. It probably won't last forever without people generating new answers somewhere else, but it answers a lot of things correctly, and the things it gets wrong are easy enough to verify. I really hope ChatGPT causes StackOverflow to change.
- gvx 3y ago
  > I really hope ChatGPT causes StackOverflow to change. It already has, and not for the better. SO is currently awash with nonsensical answers that are clearly the result of feeding the question into ChatGPT. Not to mention questions like this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/76748781/how-pythons-built-in-sum-function-works-on-dict-values#76748781 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/76748781/how-pythons-bui...
  - whstl 3y ago
    Well, perhaps that's what moderation should be focusing on blocking then, rather than driving away humans (as was mentioned a lot by other answers in this thread).

jalapenos 3y ago

Usually prefixed by a condescending "why would you want to Y?"

IIsi50MHz 3y ago
Or a befuddled asking of the same "Why?". Or an honestly curious asking. Yes, there are plenty of rude replies, but sometimes it helps to assume what somebody really means is they failed to do a context switch. Exchanging more details can help turn a 'madness' into a method. Even if they were outright rude, doing this can lead to an answer that might not otherwise be given (even though that answer may be provided by someone else).

revskill 3y ago

Yes, it's stupid af. Rather to keep silence, than to answer indirectly the quesiton. Or even if you want to suggest "another problem", make it as indirect (not the accepted answer).

CodeCompost 3y ago

The impression I get from commenters is that somehow they think their careers are tied to StackOverflow points. Trying their best to downvote correct answers and promoting their own in order to further their agenda.

JimDabell 3y ago
Downvoting costs points.
Karunamon 3y ago
SO ran a careers site for a while, and as a part of that, provided a resume/profile page upon which you were encouraged to share your score and/or your own questions and answers. I wonder if there was actually something to that…

newaccount74 3y ago

The very popular Zalgo answer is a perfect example of this problem [1] The user asks a question that can be answered quite easily, and dozens of people post answers claiming that this is the wrong way to do it and that they should use some other tech to solve the problem. Some people on Stack Overflow care more about showing off how smart they are rather than answering questions, and I think the point system attracts these people. [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags#1732454 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open...

cowthulhu 3y ago
Hilariously, the accepted (I assume by default, not by the asker) answer is flagrantly breaking, like, half a dozen rules and guidelines… but because it’s cynically and unhelpfully crapping on a newbie, it stays up. Or maybe there’s a good reason for it to stay up, but at a glance it sure isn’t a good look. I actually think SO is a great site and resource, but I also think a lot of that is despite the bitter old timers in the community, not because of them.
- underdeserver 3y ago
  Oh come on, it's not crapping on a newbie. It's a funny comment that serves as a reflection of the days and weeks this guy spent debugging these kinds of systems. As someone who was a newbie at the time when it was posted, who was looking for a way to parse HTML, I took away that it's just really the wrong way to go about it. I didn't feel crapped on at all.
  - stavros 3y ago
    The question isn't looking to parse HTML (or XML). Regexes are inappropriate for HTML because they can't adequately match the starting and ending tags, not because of black magic. The OP isn't looking to do that, so regexes look like a perfectly acceptable way to go.
    - 3y ago

enriquto 3y ago

> here’s a classic SO thread My favorite example, from "TeX stackexchange" : https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/100574/really-wide-hat-symbol https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/100574/really-wide-h... Quote from the actual answer (which is not the bogus accepted one): The question wasn't "should it be done?" But, for the same reason men climb mountains, "could it be done?" The answer, [...] is yes. Thus, we introduce [...]

martin_a 3y ago

I'd like to add the "in jQuery you can do it MUCH easier like this: [...]" when you are searching for Vanilla JS solutions.

JimDabell 3y ago

Which is the correct response to this question? > How do I shoot myself in the foot? I’m pointing the gun at my foot and pulling the trigger, but nothing is happening. Is it: > A common reason for guns not firing is that they aren’t loaded. Try loading the gun and trying again. …or is it: > Woah, hang on a sec! What are you trying to achieve exactly? It seems like you are doing something very wrong here. I’m sure there’s a better way to do whatever it is you are trying to do. There are many technical questions that give the very strong impression that somebody is asking how to shoot themselves in the foot. It’s not responsible to blindly answer the question regardless of the consequences. Yes, people sometimes overcorrect for this which can be annoying, but they are only trying to steer newbies away from shooting themselves in the foot.

gvx 3y ago
How I usually try to answer these kinds of questions is "Shooting yourself is generally not a good idea, for these reasons. If you really want to do it, you can try loading your gun and pulling the trigger again, but a better alternative might be to take off your shoe by untying your shoelaces and carefully pulling on your shoe, following the curve of your foot." But it's hard! On the one hand, you don't want to teach people to do the wrong thing (especially not on SO, where answers are often copied wholesale and pasted into production code), but also not answering the question as asked usually doesn't help the OP at all. If it's not clear what they're trying to achieve I usually leave a comment asking for clarification rather than answering, though.
Nursie 3y ago
> There are many technical questions that give the very strong impression that somebody is asking how to shoot themselves in the foot. Sure, but some of the stuff I've looked up in the past is answered with helpful comments like "You won't need to do this, your CA will do this for you" or "this is handled by your certificate verification stack, you don't need to be involved in this stuff". Well, thanks, but I'm actually implementing both of those things right now and I'm having an annoying issue with figuring out how the API for the (very popular but IMHO poorly documented) library I'm using for part of it hangs together. > Yes, people sometimes overcorrect for this which can be annoying, but they are only trying to steer newbies away from shooting themselves in the foot. I think sometimes its because comparatively the respondents are newbies, and are repeating received wisdom.

mihaaly 3y ago

This is precisely what kept me away asking anything on SO. It is so much easier and quicker searching on or figuring out by myself than preparing a question defensively and then answering all the questions about why asking about that thing and the road getting there. When I find a straight and relevant answer that is great, I like browsing SO, but I wouldn't dream having a question just to find myself in a word duel with some very eager contributor steering me into his favourite domain. I want to get ahead with a task not being in the quest of finding The Ultimate Solution or having a social life over interesting and related topics.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bjornasm 3y ago

That is incredibly annoying to find when you search for help for your problem. While maybe OP could/should do something else, you have great reasons to do X by Y. Ofcourse if you make your own question about doing X by Y you get referred to the other question and have yours closed.

xertopertha 3y ago

Should get rid of the reward system -- or at least reform it drastically to discourage pettiness. An accepted solution should not result in a reward to anybody. Somebody just starting to learn a topic posts a basic question and gets an answer from an old timer - and they both get rewarded! for what? There seems to be an army of "moderators" who are ready to pounce on easy questions and they end the answer by reminding the OP that he should upvote or accept the answer! Did any of them added anything to the knowledge base? You can get excellent answers to basic questions from ChatGPT anyway. Also they won't allow new members (perhaps experts) from commenting until they have picked up enough credits yet. The whole system is downright silly.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

o1y32 3y ago

My experience is that the "real" answer depends on the situation. Sometimes one really should use the alternative (e.g. cleaner, more general solution, most updated API), while other times they should address the original question as is (e.g. avoid additional dependency/third-party library). This is one I ran into recently: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30196175/const-methods-in-golang https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30196175/const-methods-i... The question is very clearly formed. The accepted (and currently top) answer does a good job. But at one point the other answer which is badly worded and confusing was at the top. And I don't think it should ever get the top position of the answers.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

SO changed its policies a long time ago already... they don't want to answer your questions. They hate your questions (and by extension, they hate you!). It's ok, you deserve the hate. After all, you're asking the wrong questions. They want questions that are "textbook-worthy" or possibly "encyclopedia worthy". They're on record as having said this officially. If programming and technology is just messier than that, if it's more complicated than that, and you still have questions that don't fit because of it... well, fuck you. They don't exist to answer your questions, they exist to answer great questions that they can use to build up this pretty little sight that now has some purpose other than whatever it was you thought you were using it for. The Z guy, he's playing their game. He's awesome. You, you need to be punished until you comply.

zero_shift 3y ago

This reminds me of my last ever SO question. It was many years ago, so I might be misremembering some details, but: I wanted some information on figuring out what texture serialisation was supported on a given client for a WebGL app. I needed to know this because I was optimising the client and had to deal with very large textures (it was an AR / augmented reality context). Cue a barrage of comments along the lines of "you shouldn't need to do this" "the abstraction means you can simply assume the GPU has infinite texture memory" (!) "just provide all the formats and let the GPU bridge figure it out". Then the question had a downvote and that was that, cast to the bottom of the pile. It seemed to me everyone responding to my question had this assumption "questioners are morons". A moron asking about texture serialisation is a paradox, ergo the question must have a faulty premise.