--- layout: post status: publish published: true title: ! 'Stack Overflow: a hate/love story' author: Julien Lengrand-Lambert author_login: jlengrand author_email: julien@lengrand.fr author_url: http://www.lengrand.fr wordpress_id: 772 wordpress_url: http://www.lengrand.fr/?p=772 date: 2012-10-01 12:39:05.000000000 +02:00 categories: - programming tags: - stack overflow - developer - programming - google - SEO comments: - id: 2394 author: My (almost) perfect setup to stay focused | loup2fu author_email: '' author_url: http://www.lengrand.fr/2012/10/my-almost-perfect-setup-to-stay-focused/ date: !binary |- MjAxMi0xMC0yNiAxMjo0NDoyOCArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0xMC0yNiAxMTo0NDoyOCArMDIwMA== content: ! '[...] my last post, I explained why I hate Stack Overflow, so I won’t explain it again. Let’s just say that I try to avoid searching for answers [...]' - id: 2404 author: Tristan author_email: trisweb@gmail.com author_url: http://www.trisweb.com date: !binary |- MjAxMi0xMC0yNiAxNzozMzowOSArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0xMC0yNiAxNjozMzowOSArMDIwMA== content: So you hate it because it's *too good*? That's an interesting reason. You can easily choose to balance good resources, and to form a good knowledge based on official documentation before going to other sources like SO, but I don't know why this should foster dislike! - id: 2409 author: Scott Schulthess author_email: scottschulthess@gmail.com author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMi0xMC0yNiAxOTo0NTowOCArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0xMC0yNiAxODo0NTowOCArMDIwMA== content: Post came off a bit linkbaity to me :) - id: 2454 author: Julien Lengrand-Lambert author_email: julien@lengrand.fr author_url: http://www.lengrand.fr date: !binary |- MjAxMi0xMC0yNyAxMjo0MDozOCArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0xMC0yNyAxMTo0MDozOCArMDIwMA== content: ! "This is exactly the reason why I mentioned both hate and love :). \r\n\r\nSO is one of the most powerful tools I have seen those last years. It is basically like having dozens of more experienced developers than you around, ready to help you if needed.\r\n\r\nThat without mentioning the rubber duck effect (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/03/rubber-duck-problem-solving.html)\r\n\r\nWhat I tried to highlight here is that it tends to make me become lazy. And I think I am not the only one in that situation, just look at the main page of SO and you'll see plenty of question posted from people that obviously haven't given a thought in what they do. \r\n\r\nAnd this becomes more and more true as SO questions make it to the top of Google. \r\n\r\nChoosing between a code snippet directly digested, or an ugly doc page; what would you take ? :)" - id: 2455 author: Julien Lengrand-Lambert author_email: julien@lengrand.fr author_url: http://www.lengrand.fr date: !binary |- MjAxMi0xMC0yNyAxMjo0MTozNiArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0xMC0yNyAxMTo0MTozNiArMDIwMA== content: ! "Mentioning SO, hate and love in the same sentence ? \r\nThe title is indeed a bit catchy :).\r\n\r\nBut the content of the post is a real concern of mine ;)" - id: 3590 author: Bob author_email: bloggerbob91@yahoo.com author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMy0wMS0xMSAxNzoxMDo1MCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMy0wMS0xMSAxNjoxMDo1MCArMDEwMA== content: ! "Stack Overflow represents everything I hate about programming in general ... mainly the people itself. \r\n\r\nGood helpful answers can be 'not' upvoted, down voted, or even criticized by overly-anal programmers that think they know everything in the world. \r\n\r\nIt's the only place I know where trying to be helpful and sharing your knowledge (which I consider to be valuable) can go punished. \ Why should I share my expertise with ungrateful little twits and at the same time engage p-iss-n contests with other programmers when I could just keep it to myself?\r\n\r\nPeople go to Stack Overflow only because they have done a great job of getting their posted answers to be in the top 5 of google searches." - id: 3591 author: Julien Lengrand-Lambert author_email: julien@lengrand.fr author_url: http://www.lengrand.fr date: !binary |- MjAxMy0wMS0xMSAxNzoyOToyOSArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMy0wMS0xMSAxNjoyOToyOSArMDEwMA== content: ! "I think I understand what you mean. And I kinda agree with you, but in a less extreme way :). \r\n\r\nGood answers ARE usually upvoted, and if there actually is a whole bunch of morrons on SO they don't have the majority yet .\r\nWhat pisses me off of bit more is the tendency that people have to upvote the answer from the guy having the biggest number of points instead of the one that took more time to answer. \r\n\r\nI go to SO because it is the only place indeed where i can get the EXACT answer to my question quickly (and also because I know it is only one click away).\r\n\r\nBut I disagree with the fact that SO is the only place where sharing knowledge is punished. Have you ever subscribed to Linux forums, hardware forums, or even tried to help one of your collegues at work? \r\nI mean, depending on the guy you will get ungrateful feedback. SO just makes it more public and direct.\r\n\r\nI use SO as a way to quickly get answers on simple question that you don't really need to have expertise in :\r\n- parse stuff\r\n- eclipse error \r\n\r\nThis kind of things you would spend some time searching in the docs.\r\n\r\nFor more complex stuff (architecture, project feddback, . . . ) well there are other places that are way more focused on that (like hackerbuddy : http://hackerbuddy.com/).\r\nI never got any bad feedback here :)." - id: 21502 author: Ellipsis author_email: kellmoony@yahoo.com author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMy0xMi0wNiAyMDoyNTo1NCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMy0xMi0wNiAxOToyNTo1NCArMDEwMA== content: Naileddd ittttt ^ ^ ^ !! - id: 21503 author: Ellipsis author_email: kellmoony@yahoo.com author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMy0xMi0wNiAyMDoyNjo0MSArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMy0xMi0wNiAxOToyNjo0MSArMDEwMA== content: Nailed ittttt ^ ^ ^ ---

A lot of great people already blogged about the reasons why they loved SO. All of this is true. Definitely true.

But I want to share something else

The number of people posting on StackOverflow has greatly increased over the last years. It is in fact so crowded that it is not rare to have 4 or 5 answers posted just in the time needed to read a question. It has even become really hard to be the first to answer a question now, and I love that!

Users got used to the rating system, and most of the questions I see now end up with a validated answer. Those answer (and the corresponding questions) will usually later be upvoted over time as people with the same issue find the solution to their problem. This is the very system of Stack Overflow, trust users with giving answers and sharing knowledge. And it works like hell. 

Another thing is that lately, I have seen more and more people completing others answers instead of posting theirs; or editing the question to remove context dependent information so that it can later be useful to more people. The desire for points is overcome by the desire of giving a precise and complete answer, and this is a sign that the platform answers a deep need.

SO is now such an important service that it definitely plays the role of a huge SEO platform for good answers.

Those last months, it became more and more rare that I query Google for an issue without having a really close match on SO, upvoted by so much people that the question is in the top 5 results from Google ! 

With the number of specialized Stack Overflow "themes" growing every day this also becomes true not only for programming but cooking, gaming, mathematics and even sci-fi!


in Windows . .

And this is the very reason I also hate Stack Overflow

SO is so efficient that it slowly became my first source of information. If you use DuckDuckGo like me (and you should) you know that it comes first in the results; even before the official documentation of the project.

It is now very rare for me to have to read the API or the manual of a framework any more, simply because I know I'll directly find the answer somewhere on SO.

This has very tricky effects:

You might say I am a bad programmer. Perhaps. Or I just choose to follow the easy way and take the low hanging fruit. This is why I'll stop using it for a month. I want to keep my ability to think. I don't want to be a code monkey. 

I'll keep posting answers on the platform, but from today I'll always got for the documentation first. Stack Overflow, I love you. . . but I want a divorce.

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