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Stackoverflow was specifically built for the first type of questions: those that you have to google all the time, but which have a simple answer. Before stacko
by hasenj 12y ago
Stackoverflow was specifically built for the first type of questions: those that you have to google all the time, but which have a simple answer.
Before stackoverflow, the answers to such questions were buried in forum discussions. Worse, sometimes the top google result is a forum thread where the answer is "google it"!
Detailed/advanced questions don't really belong on Stackoverflow; it wasn't designed for them.
- brudgers 12y agoHaving listened to almost all the StackOverflow -> StackExchange podcasts, the idea was to cover both obvious questions (that was more Spolsky [1]) and long-tail questions where Spolsky and Atwood were both in agreement. Both were in agreement about the horror of forum threads. One of the direct targets however was ExpertSexChange's pseudo-pay wall. The big idea behind SO was reducing friction for finding answers to programming questions. Today, "What is REST?" would probably be killed because it is too broad for StackOverflow and better answered on WikiPedia. [1]: See Spolsky's famous How do I move the turtle in Logo: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003841/how-do-i-move-the-turtle-in-logo http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003841/how-do-i-move-the...