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"They’re the elite of the elite of the best programmers out there. They’re the people who participate in Stack Overflow..." participating in SO makes you elite

"They’re the elite of the elite of the best programmers out there. They’re the people who participate in Stack Overflow..." participating in SO makes you elite? Although, there are many convincing real case scenarios discussed by few (perhaps fit for 'elite' label), they are overshadowed by the majority - the badge-gatherers. What I found (mostly) in SO is more of karmaholics, copying/pasting info from the web. Imho, it is more of a human-enabled search engine for your questions - you get a compiled list of filtered result for your questions, instead of you filtering google results.

yummyfajitas 17y ago
Spending some free time learning your craft does make you one of the elite programmers (for certain values of "elite"). Sad but true.
- nickelplate 17y ago
  I don't think many people would object to that. I think the objection is that being a regular on SO does not demonstrate that one is serious about learning their craft. At least not anymore than someone hanging out on LtU, or GDnet, etc. The problem with SO Careers is that it is in effect being advertised as the only legitimate way for programmers to show that they are serious about programming. That doesn't seem right to me.
Quarrelsome 17y ago
The major flaw in StackOverflow is the huge difference in rep you can gain depending on how many people use the same tech as you do. Answering C# questions, even insanely easy ones will get you loads of rep (between +100 to +1000) but that really specific and difficult post about some edge case in a niche technology will probably get you +10 rep, mebbe +30 if you're lucky.
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  I can't help but completely agree with that. After all, that's how I got most of my reputation score on StackOverflow. On the other hand, advocates of smaller but prouder technologies (such as Lisp) are more generous with upvotes than followers of more "mainstream" languages such as C# or Java.
  - scorpion032 17y ago
    No, I can personally testify to what the Op says; In general people in the Python/django community are quite stingy with up votes. See S Lott (or Alex Martelli) and Jon Skeet for instance; There are many, many good programmers in Python tags giving many good answers; but to be only at +2 and an accepted. In the C# tag on the other hand, or if you yourself, once in a while ask a question on git or svn, you can notice how many upvotes and points those questions get. In general, I tend to up vote liberally, particularly for the Python community related questions; but there is a limit to number of upvotes as well ;)
- WesleyJohnson 17y ago
  Is it really a flaw that certain technologies are more popular or more widely used? I agree that you can garner much more exposure on SO if you're answering questions about a Microsoft Technology, but I'm just struggling with labeling that as a flaw. Maybe I'm missing something obvious. Moreover, if a company is looking for someone working in that niche technology you speak of, then you having a fraction of rep points compared to a .NET guy is less relevant than you having 50% more points than the next guy in said niche.
  - silentbicycle 17y ago
    No, the issue is that, in SO karma, relatively common knowledge seems to be valued orders of magnitude more than insight on problems few people would be able to solve. While some of those questions are probably just obscure trivia, it also includes advanced knowledge of (say) compiler optimization. Cases where most people on the site wouldn't be familiar enough with the subject matter to tell an insightful answer from ignorant ranting. It can also be a measurement of how much time you're willing to sink into talking about programming, rather than actually doing it. (HN has the same problem.)
- codexon 17y ago
  There's a lot more flaws than that. I pointed out a few more in a blog post a while back that stirred up a hornet's nest. People attacked me as though I invented those rep-earning tactics when I was simply trying to defend myself as a newcomer. http://www.codexon.com/posts/simple-tips-to-get-stackoverflow-reputation http://www.codexon.com/posts/simple-tips-to-get-stackoverflo... You can see an example of one of the worst problems (fastest gun in the west) that plagued stackoverflow here. Someone managed to get in an answer 2 minutes before me that was completely wrong. Fast forward 7 hours later, he copies my answer, and gets accepted for it, getting far more votes than mine. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/919056/python-case-insensitive-replace http://stackoverflow.com/questions/919056/python-case-insens...
csbrooks 17y ago
I've gotten terrific answers to the questions I've posted on there, for what it's worth. And it was stuff that was difficult to google for (which is why I asked it there).
bmalicoat 17y ago
Seems Jeff and Joel are always patting their readers on the back and saying they are so 'elite' for reading Coding Horror or attending Dev Days. That part may be true, but using SO is anything but elite. Any google search containing something remotely resembling programming will return an SO result, it's not quite the underground programming exchange where only the artisanal coders are allowed that they think it is. That said I use SO and enjoy it for what it is, but I definitely don't think it has made me the elite of the best, perhaps the elite of the not so bad.
- raintrees 17y ago
  From what I have heard from the SO podcasts, being the returned site from Google is _exactly_ what they want. So it sounds like a roaring success, in those terms.
  - bmalicoat 17y ago
    Yea, it is definitely successful but what I meant by that is the users of SO are not at all elite when Google sends them there when they ask how to do their homework.

yummyfajitas 17y ago

Spending some free time learning your craft does make you one of the elite programmers (for certain values of "elite"). Sad but true.

nickelplate 17y ago
I don't think many people would object to that. I think the objection is that being a regular on SO does not demonstrate that one is serious about learning their craft. At least not anymore than someone hanging out on LtU, or GDnet, etc. The problem with SO Careers is that it is in effect being advertised as the only legitimate way for programmers to show that they are serious about programming. That doesn't seem right to me.

Quarrelsome 17y ago

The major flaw in StackOverflow is the huge difference in rep you can gain depending on how many people use the same tech as you do. Answering C# questions, even insanely easy ones will get you loads of rep (between +100 to +1000) but that really specific and difficult post about some edge case in a niche technology will probably get you +10 rep, mebbe +30 if you're lucky.

DrJokepu 17y ago
I can't help but completely agree with that. After all, that's how I got most of my reputation score on StackOverflow. On the other hand, advocates of smaller but prouder technologies (such as Lisp) are more generous with upvotes than followers of more "mainstream" languages such as C# or Java.
- scorpion032 17y ago
  No, I can personally testify to what the Op says; In general people in the Python/django community are quite stingy with up votes. See S Lott (or Alex Martelli) and Jon Skeet for instance; There are many, many good programmers in Python tags giving many good answers; but to be only at +2 and an accepted. In the C# tag on the other hand, or if you yourself, once in a while ask a question on git or svn, you can notice how many upvotes and points those questions get. In general, I tend to up vote liberally, particularly for the Python community related questions; but there is a limit to number of upvotes as well ;)
WesleyJohnson 17y ago
Is it really a flaw that certain technologies are more popular or more widely used? I agree that you can garner much more exposure on SO if you're answering questions about a Microsoft Technology, but I'm just struggling with labeling that as a flaw. Maybe I'm missing something obvious. Moreover, if a company is looking for someone working in that niche technology you speak of, then you having a fraction of rep points compared to a .NET guy is less relevant than you having 50% more points than the next guy in said niche.
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  No, the issue is that, in SO karma, relatively common knowledge seems to be valued orders of magnitude more than insight on problems few people would be able to solve. While some of those questions are probably just obscure trivia, it also includes advanced knowledge of (say) compiler optimization. Cases where most people on the site wouldn't be familiar enough with the subject matter to tell an insightful answer from ignorant ranting. It can also be a measurement of how much time you're willing to sink into talking about programming, rather than actually doing it. (HN has the same problem.)
codexon 17y ago
There's a lot more flaws than that. I pointed out a few more in a blog post a while back that stirred up a hornet's nest. People attacked me as though I invented those rep-earning tactics when I was simply trying to defend myself as a newcomer. http://www.codexon.com/posts/simple-tips-to-get-stackoverflow-reputation http://www.codexon.com/posts/simple-tips-to-get-stackoverflo... You can see an example of one of the worst problems (fastest gun in the west) that plagued stackoverflow here. Someone managed to get in an answer 2 minutes before me that was completely wrong. Fast forward 7 hours later, he copies my answer, and gets accepted for it, getting far more votes than mine. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/919056/python-case-insensitive-replace http://stackoverflow.com/questions/919056/python-case-insens...

csbrooks 17y ago

I've gotten terrific answers to the questions I've posted on there, for what it's worth. And it was stuff that was difficult to google for (which is why I asked it there).

bmalicoat 17y ago

Seems Jeff and Joel are always patting their readers on the back and saying they are so 'elite' for reading Coding Horror or attending Dev Days. That part may be true, but using SO is anything but elite. Any google search containing something remotely resembling programming will return an SO result, it's not quite the underground programming exchange where only the artisanal coders are allowed that they think it is. That said I use SO and enjoy it for what it is, but I definitely don't think it has made me the elite of the best, perhaps the elite of the not so bad.

raintrees 17y ago
From what I have heard from the SO podcasts, being the returned site from Google is _exactly_ what they want. So it sounds like a roaring success, in those terms.
- bmalicoat 17y ago
  Yea, it is definitely successful but what I meant by that is the users of SO are not at all elite when Google sends them there when they ask how to do their homework.