5 ms·

I feel like StackOverflow is a blade that cuts both ways. I find it's most useful for troubleshooting really cryptic/obscure error messages that I would undoub

I feel like StackOverflow is a blade that cuts both ways. I find it's most useful for troubleshooting really cryptic/obscure error messages that I would undoubtably blow through huge amounts of time trying to solve on my own; those are the type of problems I'm not sure I would ever get through without help from wizardly members of community. But for other answers, to the kind of lazy questions that save me the momentary hassle of consulting the docs, it's also kept me from the serendipitous learning that should happen in that process. Since knowledge compounds and makes it easier to learn other things later, overall I'd say the "lazy questions" on SO definitely have a significant learning opportunity cost. Will it be a net productivity gain over my lifetime, including learning opportunity cost? Probably, but only because of those insane bugs I'd never solve on my own. Edit to clarify: I'm not the one asking the "lazy questions" without looking around. But these SO results often rank higher than official docs for my google queries.

icelancer 13y ago
StackOverflow has been the opposite for me. I am someone who reads the man pages and does a lot of experimentation before turning to a Q&A site, I fully document what happened, the expected result, and the deviations between the two, and my hypotheses on why it happened, then post. As a result something like 85% of my questions go unanswered or are eventually answered by myself. I have stopped answering my own questions on SO because some of the questions I ask and do legwork on I feel I should be paid for since it's shitty lack of documentation from the vendors, so screw them.
- tlogan 13y ago
  Exactly. If you have complex question (the actual problem) it will be unanswered or downvoted to oblivion. That is logical because inexperienced engineers don't know what they don't know and experienced ones will be wisely silent. And the worst thing is that some answers are wrong but since they are upvoted so they seem "right" (the joke is that all javascript questions are answered with "use jQuery"). So in short: if you are novice engineer (or novice in certain field) then StackOverflow might help. If you are experienced engineer, stackoverflow is useless.
  - i_s 13y ago
    Does John Carmack count as experienced? Because he is the guy who made the claim we're talking about.
    - billmalarky 13y ago
      tlogan was not saying SO was not valuable, he specifically said that it did not provide much value for experienced programmers. SO can still provide value to the masses of less experienced programmers out there and be extremely valuable. In my experience I have found this to be true. When first starting out stackoverflow was crucial to my learning process, now it seems I've answered all of my own questions the last year or so. And I wouldn't even claim to be extremely experienced. Thus, SO has certainly become significantly less valuable to me, but I would have never gotten this far without SO.
      - i_s 13y ago
        I know. My point was that the fact that John Carmack was the one who said this suggests that he still finds it useful for himself, even though he is an experienced programmer. That is not conclusive proof, of course, just something to think about. My take is that experience only lowers the value of SO for the particular platform(s) you have experience in. I've found SO very valuable in the last couple of years even though I'm (in general) not a newbie anymore, because I've had to build software for many different platforms like ruby, mac cocoa, ios cocoa, and windows (C#/WPF and C++).
  - d0mine 13y ago
    Nobody is expert in all fields. A more constructive way to think about StackOverflow is you give in those areas where you know more and take where you know less.
- Bockit 13y ago
  > I am someone who reads the man pages and does a lot of experimentation before turning to a Q&A site I feel similarly. I'm uncomfortable asking for help on stackoverflow, a mailing list or IRC if I haven't tried everything I could think of to work something out. I always have this[1] in mind when I do end up writing a question. I almost think it should be required reading. [1]: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
GalacticDomin8r 13y ago
> I feel like StackOverflow is a blade that cuts both ways. That is a feeling, not a thought. http://www.wildmind.org/applied/depression/distinguishing-thoughts-and-emotions http://www.wildmind.org/applied/depression/distinguishing-th...

icelancer 13y ago

StackOverflow has been the opposite for me. I am someone who reads the man pages and does a lot of experimentation before turning to a Q&A site, I fully document what happened, the expected result, and the deviations between the two, and my hypotheses on why it happened, then post. As a result something like 85% of my questions go unanswered or are eventually answered by myself. I have stopped answering my own questions on SO because some of the questions I ask and do legwork on I feel I should be paid for since it's shitty lack of documentation from the vendors, so screw them.

tlogan 13y ago
Exactly. If you have complex question (the actual problem) it will be unanswered or downvoted to oblivion. That is logical because inexperienced engineers don't know what they don't know and experienced ones will be wisely silent. And the worst thing is that some answers are wrong but since they are upvoted so they seem "right" (the joke is that all javascript questions are answered with "use jQuery"). So in short: if you are novice engineer (or novice in certain field) then StackOverflow might help. If you are experienced engineer, stackoverflow is useless.
- i_s 13y ago
  Does John Carmack count as experienced? Because he is the guy who made the claim we're talking about.
  - billmalarky 13y ago
    tlogan was not saying SO was not valuable, he specifically said that it did not provide much value for experienced programmers. SO can still provide value to the masses of less experienced programmers out there and be extremely valuable. In my experience I have found this to be true. When first starting out stackoverflow was crucial to my learning process, now it seems I've answered all of my own questions the last year or so. And I wouldn't even claim to be extremely experienced. Thus, SO has certainly become significantly less valuable to me, but I would have never gotten this far without SO.
    - i_s 13y ago
      I know. My point was that the fact that John Carmack was the one who said this suggests that he still finds it useful for himself, even though he is an experienced programmer. That is not conclusive proof, of course, just something to think about. My take is that experience only lowers the value of SO for the particular platform(s) you have experience in. I've found SO very valuable in the last couple of years even though I'm (in general) not a newbie anymore, because I've had to build software for many different platforms like ruby, mac cocoa, ios cocoa, and windows (C#/WPF and C++).
- d0mine 13y ago
  Nobody is expert in all fields. A more constructive way to think about StackOverflow is you give in those areas where you know more and take where you know less.
Bockit 13y ago
> I am someone who reads the man pages and does a lot of experimentation before turning to a Q&A site I feel similarly. I'm uncomfortable asking for help on stackoverflow, a mailing list or IRC if I haven't tried everything I could think of to work something out. I always have this[1] in mind when I do end up writing a question. I almost think it should be required reading. [1]: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

GalacticDomin8r 13y ago

> I feel like StackOverflow is a blade that cuts both ways. That is a feeling, not a thought. http://www.wildmind.org/applied/depression/distinguishing-thoughts-and-emotions http://www.wildmind.org/applied/depression/distinguishing-th...