3 ms·
StackOverflow is a watershed website. There are very few websites I can go without and StackOverflow is, without a doubt, one of them. It is difficult to remem
by reidmain 14y ago
StackOverflow is a watershed website. There are very few websites I can go without and StackOverflow is, without a doubt, one of them.
It is difficult to remember the dark ages where every question I typed into Google would link to Expert Exchange and it was a coin flip on whether you'd find your answer.
Very much like GitHub was the tipping point for social coding, StackOverflow was the tipping point for social problem solving about programming.
StackOverflow and GitHub weren't the first websites of their kind but they were the ones that executed it almost flawlessly.
- sopooneo 14y agoIt's funny. I remember when Spolsky first announced the idea for the site and the vast majority of the reactions I read were people poo-pooing it since there were so many seemingly similar things already. I take that as a big lesson: if there is a crowded market, but no one doing it well, that is the best possible opportunity.
- kprobst 14y agoActually prior to the dark ages most programming answers (for me at least) were to be found on the Deja USENET archives.
- Jimmie 14y agoDo you mean "can't go without"? Except for your second sentence you are praising StackOverflow.
- reidmain 14y agoYup you are correct Jimmie. Unfortunate that I cannot go back and edit it.