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IE Web Development Support Moving to Stack Overflow
- hoodoof 12y agoSuch a bad idea. The format of StackOverflow is very tightly defined. I bet all support questions don't fit that format. Then what? StackOverflow should speak up against companies doing this.
- camdenre 12y agoI'm guessing StackExchange is partnering with them in this move.
- hueving 12y agoDefinitely. It was created by Jeff Atwood who is a very "pro-Microsoft" figurehead in the .NET community so there was probably a lot of collaboration in this move.
- catkin 12y agoTrue, but Jeff Atwood left SO quite some time ago now.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- teh_klev 12y agoAs catkin has pointed out, Jeff left SE a good while ago. Also his current baby, Discourse [0], is built on Ruby on Rails, Postgres, Redis at the back end and ember.js on the front [1]. [0]: http://www.discourse.org/ http://www.discourse.org/ [1]: http://www.discourse.org/faq/#tech http://www.discourse.org/faq/#tech
- Theodores 12y agoAskUbuntu is the place for Ubuntu where Canonical are fully doing it. Microsoft are following suit.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- hirsin 12y agoAlready partnered - that the "Internet-Explorer" tag already has an image indicates an existing partnership [1]. This may be a deeper partnership though. 1: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/30187/what-do-icons-on-the-tags-mean http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/30187/what-do-icons-...
- Shog9 12y agoWouldn't have to be. You don't have to partner with SO to allow folks to ask questions about your product; they just have to be programming questions. Ideally good ones. Also helps a lot if you answer them. If you want to go further than that, there are various levels of sponsorship possible for a tag, and [internet-explorer] has been sponsored at some level for at least a year. These grant you various advertising and branding privileges, but do not otherwise affect how questions are asked/answered within that tag. Disclaimer: I work for Stack Exchange but am not involved in the sales or marketing side of things.
- Shog9 12y agoIt's not as though SO hasn't been the de-facto support site for C# for years; what's one more platform? If Microsoft wants to go where folks are already asking questions on its products and answer them then more power to 'em. We do have fairly strict guidelines for companies that want to do this however: http://stackoverflow.com/help/product-support http://stackoverflow.com/help/product-support
- hoodoof 12y agoGoogle moved their support to SO for one of their products. I wasn't happy with the lack of response from their support team so I posted a message saying "What the heck do I have to do to get an answer from you guys on your product?". What do you think the response from SO was? People yelled "it's volunteers here choosing to answer questions on their own time! You aren't allowed to demand a response on SO, who do yo think you are?". Or something to that effect anyway. Corporate support channels do not belong on a site that is rigorously and outspokenly community driven. If such a thing is to be allowed then there must be formal escalation procedures to be able to push questions up the line the the company that has offloaded its support to SO. The whole thing just doesn't fit.
- oblio 12y agoGoogle does not do support. This has been known for a long time. They don't hire support people, just developers. As such, SO is the best support you're ever going to get for Google products. (Thanks for the down votes - am I wrong? I doubt it ;) )
- andrewstuart 12y agoGoogle was very attentive when I wanted to buy something from them. Phone number, quickly answered by a helpful human. The precise inverse of my experience trying to get support from them.
- wnevets 12y agoIts almost 2015 by the way. Alot has changed since google was completely awful at support.
- xanderstrike 12y agoThey're just formally recognizing the state of affairs as it already is. When I have a problem with IE, I don't go to whatever MS had before (I don't even know what it was), I'd Google it and the first would invariably be StackOverflow. MS has realized that they can save money and provide effectively the same support (since nobody used their support anyway) by recognizing the third party tool.
- MichaelGG 12y agoCorrect. Microsoft did this for Azure support. I had a question, they redirect you to post on SO. And then the question is closed because it's off topic. Now moving to a dedicated Stack Exchange site would be fine (like AskUbuntu). The software is OK, it's just the idiotic mods and hostile users that make SO suck. I asked a question on Server Fault, and 5 years later someone added a helpful, perfect answer (a new library was available that did exactly what I needed). That answer was down voted, and then the user was chastised by someone, telling them off for answering an old question. Bizarre.
- tonyedgecombe 12y agoStrange, I answer old questions all the time.
- Kiro 12y ago> telling them off for answering an old question I find this hard to believe. Link?
- afandian 12y agoI'm guessing it was this: http://serverfault.com/questions/23058/linux-equivalent-of-windows-nlb#comment780018_645312 http://serverfault.com/questions/23058/linux-equivalent-of-w... There are a lot of people on Stack Exchange. There's a surprisingly strict adherence to the rules, but it doesn't mean everyone thinks and acts to the same way. Nothing should come as a surprise!
- cesarb 12y agoStrange. There's even a badge (the "Necromancer" badge) for answering an old question: "Answered a question more than 60 days later with score of 5 or more".
- k-mcgrady 12y agoI don't think all the badges are for good things. I recently got a 'peer pressure' badge for "Deleted own post with score of -3 or lower."
- kayman 12y agoMicrosoft making a lot of moves that are starting surprise the tech community. it will take some time to convert the generation that grew up with the old closed microsoft, but slowly I believe they will have converts.
- sajt 12y agoI think Stack Overflow has been getting worse and worse in recent years. Their community is outright hostile to active discussion. Only directly answerable questions are tolerated. Microsoft is (as always) a few years late to the party.
- endgame 12y agoWhen it was young you could find veteran wizards who answered all sorts of obscure things because it was fun. The last straw for me was seeing a perfectly valid question about video memory in DOS get drive-by closed by some mod.
- benoits 12y agoInstead of the overzealous closing, why doesn't SO create a "Stack Overflow Opinions" Stack Exchange site where they move the offending questions?
- fishtoaster 12y agoI was one of the early mods on programmers.stackexchange.com that was kinda-sorta aimed at being just that. Some participants wanted explicitly that, where offending questions would be automatically moved to P.SE. Others wanted "anything that'd be off-topic on SO" as the key criteria for P.SE. A lot of the early questions there were pulled directly from previously-closed questions on StackOverflow. Over time, though, P.SE drifted away from that model due largely to pressure from the SO/SE leadership. It was made clear that free-form discussion was not what the StackExchange platform was for- it was for answerable questions. And I can understand that. There exist a lot of places on the web to discuss technology (e.g., the one we’re commenting on now). Forums, IRC, blogs, and social media site have been around for a long time. They all sucked as a place to get answers. SO/SE built a better solution, and part of that was a strong anti-discussion bias. It worked, and there is now a great place on the internet to get answers instead of the endless morass of vBulletin sites. I can understand them not wanting to mess with a successful formula.
- ihaveajob 12y agoThis is great news. In the past we worked with a great group of developer advocates, and I know they spent countless hours answering all sorts of technical questions on Windows development on StackOverflow. Making this official was only the next natural step.
- mooreds 12y agoI guess you have to go where the people are, but man, I wouldn't want to outsource the knowledge base/forums for a major product to a different company. Seems like a valuable asset to give up.
- aragot 12y agoWhat I find funny is, people mostly turn to Stack Overflow to find workarounds or answers "in the context of x and y". It is a very organic way to do support. And IE, up to IE8, used to require a lot of workarounds, so pretty much the whole community has already turned to SO for debugging.
- btown 12y agoI'm sure they'll be using the SO API every night and building an internal database, just in case.
- wvenable 12y agoAll the data is creative commons and Stack Overflow makes complete data dumps available: https://archive.org/details/stackexchange https://archive.org/details/stackexchange So the trade off (going where the users are vs. the assets) doesn't seem that bad.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoIts only 25GB!? I could have this all in Elasticsearch locally!
- iancarroll 12y agoMSDN Social is probably the worst web I've ever used, honestly... The layout is confusing at best. The answer is attached to the bottom (full length, no see more or anything) of the question and is then repeated again. Threaded comments are also very poorly formatted, and they hit a limit pretty soon from what I've seen.
- damian2000 12y agoNot to mention that its slow as hell.
- danabramov 12y agoHopefully they'll do better than Facebook!
- dfar1 12y ago"With over 40-thousand questions tagged "Internet Explorer", and dozens more asked every day, it has proven to be a great place to find reliable help." The announcement makes it seem that they are proud of how many questions are out there about IE issues.
- brudgers 12y agoQuestions are the product of an engaged user base.
- Renaud 12y agoAs of just now: * tag [internet-explorer]: 27,934 questions * tag [google-chrome]: 28,153 questions Since the number of questions is your metric for attributing shame, that surely imply that chrome is much worse than IE, especially considering the long legaccy and larger install base of IE vs Chrome... Or, I don't know, could it be possible that the number of questions reflects more than just how bad a piece of software is?
- andreasvc 12y agoChrome has by far the larger install base. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
- Renaud 12y agoNow it does, but there was a time, at least when SO came online, when IE had a much larger install base, and older, troublesome versions of IE were still fairly popular.
- px1999 12y agoGiven the nature and content of the specific forum, and that SO is built on a largely microsoft tech stack, moving it to SO makes sense. Still an interesting move from Microsoft. Projects hosted on github, open source, versions of the .NET runtime for mac and linux, embracing docker, node.js and avoiding getting in fights over front end frameworks... this really seems like they're trying to turn a new page.
- zanny 12y agoThis might just be another embrace phase. They have been cyclical in the past. If they were to get a large portion of market share on their proprietary tech platforms they would certainly move to lock in their users and cripple the open platforms they are now adopting. They are only restarting the cycle because they are losing ground. And I'm not coming at this from a malicious Microsoft angle, they are just in the same league as Adobe and Oracle in that they maximize revenue by dominating markets and crushing competition to force users onto their proprietary platforms. It is inherent to how their principle earning divisions operate.
- jsmeaton 12y agoThis makes no sense to me. There is no opportunity for "extend" or "extinguish" for either StackOverflow or GitHub. Similarly, if they ended up destroying the various non-microsoft .NET implementations (mono..), it would affect the platforms they run on very minimally. There'd be a couple of pissed off people, but meh.
- tonyedgecombe 12y agoExactly, I don't see them open sourcing Office or Windows any time soon.
- shetter 12y agoAfter trying to outcompete Apple with similarly closed but way crappier controlled and closed environments (Windows 8 store and metro UI), they finally understood they had to push their own strength, that is: "developers developers developers developers".
- mathattack 12y agoWow - is this a massive pivot for Stack Overflow? A new revenue model?
- dragonwriter 12y agoNo, Google and other vendors have done this with a number of things (shifting support channels to SO) over the last few years. Its not a shift for SO. It might be a shift for Microsoft, though.
- mathattack 12y agoDoes SO get paid for it?
- arrowgunz 12y agoThat is one smart move by Microsoft. Microsoft definitely seems like it is heading in the right direction. I'm quite excited to see what Microsoft have under their sleeves. Faster release cycles for Internet Explorer (like any other popular browsers) would be a killer move by them, IMO.
- vezzy-fnord 12y agoI don't see what's so amazing about this move. SO is well established at this point and Microsoft are just moving a small subset of their vast technical support effort to another platform. It is an excellent publicity stunt, though. It'll certainly fuel more of the "Microsoft has turned over a new leaf" discussion, but in the grand scheme of things with all their previous announcements like open-sourcing the C# compiler and .NET platform, this is a pretty negligible move.
- foxylad 12y agoIt may be negligible, but for me it's evidence of a humility that I haven't seen before. "Old Microsoft" would never have publicly admitted that MSDN was inferior to SO, and if they admitted it privately their response would have been to build a replacement. Hell, Ballmer would have been throwing tables at anyone who suggested this during his tenure.
- _lce0 12y agoLooks like it's more of cost saving than humility, at least to me
- sliverstorm 12y agoOne step at a time. Same thing I tell people about legalizing marijuana. You will never get everything you want, all at once. But if you go little by little...
- jessedhillon 12y agoI don't understand why Microsoft continues to make it's own rendering engine. I get that they need a web browser they can control and distribute with their OS, but why a rendering engine? Especially one that, in my region (SF bay area), runs natively on fewer than 1% of the dev machines I see out there. If somebody were inclined to test their site for IE they'd most likely have to go through the hassle of setting up a VM running Windows just to do it. More and more, I'm hearing people just say "I don't test my work in IE" and being fine with it. Is there a good argument for developing their own rendering engine, given the existence of two really good open source engines?
- axefrog 12y agoI'd be careful and try to recognise that the concentration of Apple-focussed development environments that you observe in the SF Bay area is not a reasonable reflection of the developer community at large. Windows still holds the greater proportion of market share by a large margin. On that note, you should make a point of also asking why Apple needs its own browser, or why Google needed to diverge Chrome from Webkit, or why Opera needs to exist, and so forth. Competition is good and mitigates complacency.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Encosia 12y agoI'm glad they do. IE9 spurred a lot of competition around GPU accelerated 2D rendering and we all benefited. Even now, IE11 and 12 are dramatically faster than Chrome on my laptop in terms of how quickly pages load, scroll, etc. Even though I don't use IE as my default browser, I think I probably continue to benefit from their performance work. Regardless, Trident isn't going anywhere since Windows Store apps built with HTML/CSS/JS rely on IE's rendering engine to run.
- gsnedders 12y agoThey've also pushed the market into caring more about effects on battery life.
- andrewstuart 12y agoI created www.NotConstructive.com a few days ago in response to some of the challenges of posting to Stack Overflow. Launch announcement: http://fourlightyears.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/notconstructivecom-launches-nobel-prize.html http://fourlightyears.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/notconstructiv...
- speedkills 12y agoGreat idea, I really hope you are able to get the word out and build a community there. We need a place to talk about engineering, the part that comes down to trade offs, not just easy answers. I think that would be very constructive.
- mlvljr 12y agoA mechanism to move / capture a SE question before it gets deleted would be nice.
- stinos 12y agoWas this some kind of relaunch then? What happened? HN post from over a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062876
- andrewstuart 12y agoYep, read the blog post link in the parent message.
- wcdolphin 12y agoThat blog post does not look very "official". I had to double check to make sure it wasn't a joke.
- tkubacki 12y agoAsked my first IE question there - got downvotes with "it's not an IE support page" comment
- vatotemking 12y agodo you have a link to your question?
- DCoder 12y agoI would guess it's this one: https://i.stack.imgur.com/NFYi1.jpg https://i.stack.imgur.com/NFYi1.jpg
- tkubacki 12y agoYes this was that one. Being honest this may not be following guidelines - so I deleted question. Maybe someone should create Stackoverflow like site for more open questions.
- ygra 12y agoIt's a very poor question, indeed. And downvotes and the close doesn't surprise me. Hobo Sapiens' last comment actually details that quite well. I also wouldn't expect the dev team to comment on that at all. When they are able to share whether something is being done, then the status on the page will change, but before that they'll make no comments or commitment on anything.
- tkubacki 12y agoAgreed on question part. Regarding IE itself: strongly disagree - marking most of new tech as "under consideration" is poor communication management at best - if they are not interested in sharing anything they should add another status. This is misleading.
- 12y ago
- Animats 12y agoDoes this mean Microsoft is terminating developer support for IE? All Stack Overflow can do is answer questions. They can't fix bugs in the product.
- yuhong 12y agoNo, they are likely going to use it as a source for bugs to fix in IE.
- eximius 12y agoThis is... not what Stack Overflow is for...
- scrollaway 12y agoAre you an owner or shareholder of SO? There's no way this was done without their consent, so unless you actually have a say in what SO is or isn't for, well...
- BorisMelnik 12y agoWow this is very surprising, glad to see Microsoft moving more into the commoners domain. Not a big SO user, but what would prevent them from getting IE.stackoverflow.com?
- ygra 12y agoBecause web development questions that have to do with IE are not off-topic on SO. Why would they need an own site? There is no csharp.SE, java.SE, android-dev.SE, etc. either.
- alexggordon 12y agoFirstly, bravo. I really applaud Microsoft for realizing what it wanted to have in a Q&A site, and realizing Stack Exchange was that realizing. Then realizing that people are probably going to go to SE, instead of a Microsoft forum or product. That said, I think Microsoft is going to be in an adapt or die philosophy for the next few months, and I think this is one of those decisions. They know they need to foster a community that anyone can be a part of. Open Source move? Check. More Open Source? Check. Stack Exchange? Check. The only thing this piece is missing is a better hardware platform, so I'm going to be very interested in seeing what Microsoft can produce in the coming months.
- Avalaxy 12y ago> The only thing this piece is missing is a better hardware platform, so I'm going to be very interested in seeing what Microsoft can produce in the coming months. Why? Honestly, I think the Surface tablets and Nokia's Lumia devices are really high quality.
- dec0dedab0de 12y agoI think the Surface tablets and Nokia's Lumia devices are really high quality. I agree, I would buy a surface pro if I could get it without windows.
- k-mcgrady 12y agoWhat OS would you want to run on it? I can't think of something better suited. Android apps aren't optimised well for a large tablet and iOS is too focused to work well on a device that is supposed to allow you to replace your laptop. You could run a linux distro but I don't know of many that are touch optimised very well (Ubuntu has something in the works but I read recently it's definitely not ready for primetime yet).
- johnmaguire2013 12y agoI think Ubuntu touch-based stuff has loooooong been in the works. Unity is a part of it.
- towelguy 12y agoWith more and more teams moving their support to Stack Overflow, they should think about a way to show if the user is an official support person in their signature, rather than them writting "disclaimer I work at this" every time.
- meesterdude 12y agoThis is great news, and this new Microsoft that seems to be emerging (albeit late to the party) is a welcome change of direction. But lets not kid ourselves. It's still Microsoft. In my eyes, they have one of the worst track records and it will take a monumental change for my perspective to change to positive; I do not know what it would truly take to change it. They have played the evil corporation card for so long, I worry if you give them an inch they'll take a mile. But I welcome hearing good news from redmond, and hope it keeps coming.
- larssorenson 12y agoThe day I can run Visual Studio on Linux to develop a C# app / website I can deploy, run, and test in Linux is the day I forgive Microsoft for their recent issues. They definitely seem committed to turning over a new lease.
- meesterdude 12y agoI was thinking something similar. If they were to materially invest in Linux (specifically help in it's sore spots) I would be able to forgive them. If they were just a positive force in software as a whole and made everything they touched better, and contributed their efforts to all sorts of existing community efforts (like linux; but other projects like browsers, databases, etc), they would win over the masses overnight. No question. Microsoft, as a company that makes great software, is what I've always wanted them to be. But they've been so caught up on their own platforms and solutions that have run counter to that. In a version of the future, it could happen. There could be a day where I, as a RoR developer, consider using MSSQL as my database, because it manages to be better than postgres or mysql, and has approachable OS/support licensing. Where I write code in their frameworks because they're better than Xcode and output code that runs on all platforms. Where I use IE because it renders the best and fastest and has the best inspector (and obviously, zero IE specific code required; and starts running on linux and OSX). So it could happen. It's a sharp, sharp pull up from their current path, but there is a path to me advocating for them and what they build.
- thepoet 12y agohttps://developer.linkedin.com/blog/stacking-api-support-linkedin https://developer.linkedin.com/blog/stacking-api-support-lin... LinkedIn API support moved to Stack Overflow too. Same timing might not be coincidence.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]