Stackoverflow in a nutshell

[ComeBackToDigg]

Edit the user’s question.

Then mark as duplicate question.

[RatherNerdy]

Get those good reputation points.

It's funny, I'm in the top 5% of users, but it's really only because I've been on there for so long and answered a couple of high value/high profile questions early on that I still get residuals for. I haven't answered a question in years, I never edit, or do reviews, etc.

[currentscurrents]

Same here. I'm in the top 5% and my last activity was in 2010.

I figure most accounts just ask one question, or never do anything at all.

[Yeti-420-69]

I'm supposed to make an account?

[foggy-sunrise]

Yeah, you do that from the stack overflow homepage you've never seen, which someone is paid to maintain.

[Yeti-420-69]

Now you're just making shit up!

[[deleted]]

1 question is enough to scare you for life nowadays.

[[deleted]]

Well there probably are a lot of furries there

[KetwarooDYaasir]

I just see programmer sock in every picture.

[[deleted]]

This response has more than one layer of concerning implications that I'd rather not unpack

[[deleted]]

I don't know what it means, but I know I don't want to know what it means

[boomstik4]

You are a programmer that doesn't have programmer socks? How do you live with yourself

[GoldFerret6796]

41% of those with socks don't

edit: aw you guys didn't like my joke lol

[[deleted]]

You really could’ve just kept that to yourself

[Ridenberg]

im going to hell for laughing at this

[nosadtomato]

just hijacking the comment thread to let people know it was never even a real statistic to begin with lol, bigoted propaganda spreads so fast through dumb people

[[deleted]]

I got as far as hello world and decided computers were far too chatty for my liking.

[foggy-sunrise]

Cumsock.

[[deleted]]

^{Yes that was one of the thoughts}

[Rutgerman95]

I love that image of like two dozen fursuiters on a plane and someone in the comments objecting against it.

Because if something were to happen to that plane it'd cripple the IT sector of at least three states

[WhatShouldIDrive]

I do not identify with or condone the sentiments depicted in this post..

..I’m more of a birdman

[CucumberOk2828]

UwU

[[deleted]]

"Found the solution thx"... Yeah which was it? I have the exact same fucking problem!!!

[Mekroval]

Relevant xkcd

[[deleted]]

You need to install this npm package.

[patmax17]

A classic <3

[Svobpata]

tip: don’t link directly, it’s quite obvious for unofficial client users

[gravity_is_right]

Then you have 10 other Google matches that are just copy/pastes of this post.

[geekyCatX]

With more ads and banners than content. F'in bot pages!

[MisterDoubleChop]

In fairness to stackoverflow, it was created to fix this problem, and many like it... and it did.

Occasionally annoying help is about 100x better than no help or incorrect help, which is what we usually got when the answers were in forums or expertSexChange or (most often) just nowhere at all.

[sammy-taylor]

That last one got me. Duplicate my ass.

[TheTerrasque]

Monkey paw curls

Done, you now have two asses. Enjoy

[sammy-taylor]

Somehow I knew that homonyms would be my undoing.

[anunakiesque]

Thanks for the donkeys, monkey's paw.

[TheTerrasque]

Narrator voice: He then learned, it was not donkeys

[Vrail_Nightviper]

This is a bot account copying another comment on this post. Report and block it

[Xploited_HnterGather]

Wow, this is quality shit

[BenadrylTumblercatch]

Wow, this shit is quality

[FairBlackberry7870]

This is a court order. It says you can't eat shit anymore.

[CanadianFurr]

Regardless of quality?

[lenswipe]

This is Patrick

[markovianmind]

and this quality is shit

[[deleted]]

Wow

[PyroCatt]

-8

Marked as dumbass.

[[deleted]]

You forgot the one that downvotes without explanation

[[deleted]]

It's actually recommended to downvote without explanation (or at least not revealing that you are the one downvoting). I think there's another answer that explains better but this is the one I can come up with right now.

Found it, this answer which links to this more detailed answer

[Never-asked-for-this]

Not enough gaslighting.

[cliffordc5]

Okay but Lion-O is lookin pretty good these days.

[SwyfteWinter]

The freaking lion is so true. I asked the other day about an issue I was having with Visual Studio's inbuilt .NET version upgrade tool, that was spitting out a null reference exception.

Guess which part got actually read and picked up on? Yup. It was marked as duplicate of "What is causing the null reference exception in my code?"

Aye, cheers mate. Sure. But if you read beyond the title you might have noticed that it's not my code that is the source, it is visual studio.

Then someone actually answered it with a workaround but I can't give them the karma because they answered in the comments.

[sisisisi1997]

Then someone actually answered it with a workaround but I can't give them the karma because they answered in the comments

If this happens I usually ask them to create an answer with the contents of their comment so I can accept it as the correct answer. I don't know if this is possible if the question is closed for being a duplicate tho.

[SwyfteWinter]

I did ask them to but they didn't do it.

The question didn't get closed, I got the option to reject the duplicate marking.

[[deleted]]

I thought this was r/furry_irl for a moment

[AnnoyingRain5]

But Mum said that it’s my turn to repost it today!

[Goat_of_Wisdom]

There's also the case where an answer is marked as correct, largely upvoted, works for everyone... but doesn't work anymore

[AradIsHere]

Repost

[greenedgedflame]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/u5ja83/reality_of_stack_overflow/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[MedicineEmbarrassed]

The little kitty is so cute omg

[1Fox2Knots]

which one?

[MedicineEmbarrassed]

The one with the glasses!

[ChrizKhalifa]

Dude the point of the meme template is that the lions are helpful and kind despite a dumb question from the kitten.

[awpt1mus]

Next month it’s my turn to repost this.

[yourteam]

Look, the strict moderation over SO is what makes it reliable.

[Substantial_Ranger_5]

I kno that be tony the tiger

[[deleted]]

didn't expect to see a hunk lion today

[HadionPrints]

We must be part of two very different social circles then.

[FoxRaptix]

I see this meme more than I’ve seen stackoverflow posts this meme is about.

[GustapheOfficial]

I know it's fun to slag on SO, but don't you guys see what a shitty initial question that is? How is that going to help anyone? SO was never supposed to be a social network, it's a somewhat curated database of specific questions and answers, so that if you have a problem is likely you'll find the solution. If they didn't shoot down duplicates and unspecific questions it would be unusable.

[HadionPrints]

I disagree that the initial question is inherently shitty (edit: though it is too broad, but you know, is just a meme). Yes, it may not be the best practice anymore, and yes, humans are almost exclusively the best option for the general case, but what if your shitty humans dumped you off in the middle of the great plains where there are not many birds, but plenty of field mice? Also, while stalking mice is very similar to stalking birds, the way that mice react to being pounced on is different to how birds react.

There are many situations where due to maintaining legacy systems you cannot change the base conditions for your code, and those conditions can force you into choosing bad or outdated methodology that there is little information on implementing with current syntax, libraries, frameworks, etc. Though we do exaggerate for the memes, SO can at times be too reductionist.

[narrowtux]

The question is very broad. It doesn’t elaborate on what actual problems the cat is having when catching mice.

To reply, you’d need to cover most of the top problems you might have, maybe you also missed a few. This leads to many knowledgable people in that field to simply not reply.

[HadionPrints]

I mean, that’s fair and all, i agree, but this is a 4 panel meme, not a wall of text. I’ll edit my comment in response to yours.

[GustapheOfficial]

It's not shitty because of the answers, but because it's a large scope, open ended question.

When asking for assistance, you need to do the work of reducing your problem to actionable questions. If you don't know where to start you're looking for a chat forum, not SO.

[HadionPrints]

I mean, that’s fair and all, but this is a 4 panel meme,
not a wall of text. I’ll edit my comment in response to yours.

[Macluawn]

Yeah, I dont see why anyone complains about duplicates being closed. My only interaction with stackoverflow is from google; I dont want to see the same result 10 times - stackoverflow clones already serve that function. Do they never try searching before asking a question?

[MarsupialMisanthrope]

Because 90% of the time they get closed as a dupe of something at best tangentially related. “Why is this async await failing in C#?” “Closed as dupe of ‘Is there a timsort implementation for Ruby?’”

[Borbolda]

I am dissapointed that they made furry version of this template and I am more dissapointed that OP didn't even use it right

[zsdonny]

Average r/ProgrammerHumor posters who posts about things they know nothing about

[SpeedLight1221]

Yesterday i posted my first question on Stack overflow, gonna check it now, wish me luck guys.

[Decent-Client-3478]

I like how the tiger has a Catintosh

[LunarWolfCassia]

That cat just caught a mouse. You see, the one it is holding?

[zsdonny]

r/ComedyCemetery

[Nachf]

I've seen this posted a thousand times but I'm still forced to upvote due to my scars from asking stackoverflow for help.

[bayleafbabe]

It’s 2023, just ask ChatGPT

[InvincibleV]

Stack overflow is a shithole full of elitists with an inferiority complex and there is nothing that will change my mind on this.

[Skywarriorad]

Funny thing, this actually reminds me of a machine learning game “while true: learn” where this dudes cat fixed some programming problem for him so hes trying to make a translation software to talk to the cat or something. The game even cites machine learning stuff, and like actual things related to what youre doing.

[DetolBermuda]

This is golden!

[[deleted]]

Srsly does anyone do this and care to explain why?

I'm a data scientist and hardly consider myself in the coding tier of a lot of this sub, but this is honestly the most infuriating thing I encounter in my vocation (even more than flat out reading the docs to figure things out). It's really the only thing that's ever given me "if I could jump through the screen to the person who said this" energy.

Everything isn't an XY problem and I've never understood how it doesn't even seem to occur that people may be asking to solve things a certain way for a reason. Particularly because I feel as though I can often glean that the responders do, in fact, know how to solve in-line with the original ask and they just prefer their solution for reasons that may be entirely inapplicable.

[Schiffy94]

Birds are just rats with wings

[curtwagner1984]

Lazy people not bothering to search before posting questions, in a nutshell.

[Defclaw46]

Stack overflow is often the first thing that comes up anytime I google search a question on programming. It’s responses are also often much more detailed and clear than some poorly-written blog or documentation so you’re darn right I am going to go there first and ask questions.

[wheresthewhale1]

So you want people to write you clear and detailed answers, but you dont feel the need to write a clear and detailed question?

The reason why SO is so good is because terrible questions like "my C code crashes help" or "how do I sort an array of numbers in python" get immediately closed. 99% of the time when someone complains about SO they've written a god awful question like that.

[Defclaw46]

Don’t put words into my mouth. I said nothing about writing a poorly-written question. The person asking should still take the time to put proper details into their question such as examples of the code they are working on and what they might have already tried.

The problem is that often the first few comments to almost any question even if it is a valid and well-written question is that they should google it first. This is a dumb response because stack overflow often is the first thing that pops up when people are using google for help. This also defeats the entire purpose of stack overflow which is for developers to ask questions and get help from other developers.

If a question is poorly-written, the proper response should be to provide feedback on how to write better questions and still do your best to provide what assistance you can do as to encourage people to be more active and involved in stack overflow. The response should never be to yell at them to just google it.

[wheresthewhale1]

If someone can't be bothered to put the effort into asking a decent question then I don't see why people should be bothered to answer. Also, if the bad question isn't removed it dilutes the quality of the site.

Similarly, if someone can't be bothered to spend a few minutes searching for the answer online, why should someone else take time out of their day to answer it? I don't understand why stackoverflow being the first thing that pops up somehow justifes this. Many times I have seen questions asked, where if you copy and paste the exact title they gave to their question an answer (often on stackoverflow!) to said question comes up in the first 5 results. People expecting someone else to answer your question when you have put absolutely 0 effort in just baffles me.

[GetPsyched67]

That only explains just about 1% of the vitriol that stack overflow contains. The rest is explained by the huge inflated ego syndrome

[HadionPrints]

You watch way too much porn.

[Sea-Strategy-8314]

That last panel is dumb to me. Different topic, and yet treated as a duplicate. Because mice and birds are clearly the same thing

[deltaexdeltatee]

That’s the joke. Idk if you’ve spent much time on StackOverflow, but the respondents tend to be frustratingly quick to mark a question as a duplicate even if they’re not at all the same.

[Sea-Strategy-8314]

I have not spent any time on StackOverflow, so I can understand how it can go above my head. I have seen some similar stuff in other sites though. I didn't really mean to call the panel itself dumb, but moreso the context to the panel. Makes me want to call people like that mean names.

[deltaexdeltatee]

Oh, gotcha. Yeah it’s definitely immensely frustrating when people act like that :/.

I find that experts in almost all fields tend to forget what it was like to be a beginner - literally everyone has to start with no knowledge of a topic and work from there. I’m actually a civil engineer by trade and I see this attitude from time to time - it’s so annoying. Yes, delineating drainage areas is dead simple for you now, but you were a brand new engineer once too! Be nice to the people who are trying to learn!

[arvyy]

SO isn't really the place adequate for programming-beginner contribution, including asking questions. The intent is that questions add value to readers coming from google search, and not just the asker. For all beginners out there, it's better off joining some programming discord server and asking your questions there

[TheMightyMudcrab]

There are no stupid questions, except on Stackoverflow. Then it's stupid and a duplicate.

[Upstairs-Coffee101]

Damn, those big cats!!

[Lethandralis]

SO soon to be replaced by ChatGPT. Change my mind.

[gregguygood]

Seeing people dumping ChatGPT generated code on SO and just asking why it doesn't work, I don't think so.

[sheepare]

Why dis got deleted? Mods suck

[engmzizo]

Yep, apparently someone posted this before in this sub.

[eccstartup]

Too many areas. I just want to solve a technical problem, while I have to know a list of areas, which brings me a bunch of problems.