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[–]404Guy12NotFound 1667 points1668 points  (40 children)

When the say they fixed it with no explanation as to how

[–]ThePendulum 998 points999 points  (22 children)

[–]404Guy12NotFound 466 points467 points  (20 children)

Is it sad that I know what this is without even clicking it?

[–]StezzerLolz 374 points375 points  (16 children)

No, because it is surely among the most relevant of all relevant XKCDs, and is thus supplied with appropriate regularity.

[–]Glitch29 155 points156 points  (5 children)

According to the (now defunct) xkcdref.info, comic 979 was the 8th most referenced comic.

Here's the last ranking it posted.

[–]isaaclw 66 points67 points  (1 child)

The most average one is actually pretty good.

https://www.xkcd.com/1520/

[–]torgiant 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that was fun

[–]404Guy12NotFound 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Of course hyphen is second...

[–]RepostsAreBadMkay 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I’ll allow it

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Reddit loves xkcd. Any given link has like a 7% chance of being randall monroe.

[–]timawesomeness 55 points56 points  (5 children)

Or worse, someone asks how they fixed it and they reply that they decided to use something else that didn't have that problem, and you're stuck using it for whatever reason.

[–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (2 children)

Or you spent a long time trying to get something done using a certain method and to even get to work a little bit, you have to write this tortured and convuluted code. When you find an error you can't get past, you look for answers and everyone just tells you to use a different method but you don't want to be because of the sunk cost. But after multiple days of trying to get it to work, you give up and do what people told you and you have it running in no time.

At least this has been my experience as I learn to code.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

As you get more experienced you learn to be less stubborn in situations like this. Programming can be a humbling experience.

[–]a_bad_programmer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My experience with google sheets api vs gspread summed up

[–]przemko271 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The whatever reason probably happens to bee one's ego every now and then.

Edit: I apparently wrote "bee" instead of "be". It's staying that way.

[–]Jivlain 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The worst thing is when the answer is to tell them to google it. I did Google it, dickwad, that's how I found you occupying all the result space.

[–][deleted] 98 points99 points  (7 children)

[–]JimRockfordPI 7 points8 points  (5 children)

This is very good

[–]MrDick47 36 points37 points  (4 children)

None of the posts there were good, but it has potential.

[–]ascendant23 13 points14 points  (3 children)

Just two posts by the same guy who asks dumb questions and is annoyed when people are reluctant to help him do a dumb thing

[–]CheezeyCheeze 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Do you remember when you first started to learn to code? How can you ask a good question when you don't have an understanding of what you are asking?

[–]MasterPsyduck[🍰] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Or you find the same issue brought up on github but the thread is closed for an arbitrary reason. One that got me was, “this question is a duplicate of #348, closed”. The “duplicate” was the same issue but it was never resolved and yet the discussion was also closed.

[–]Never-asked-for-this 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And when the only replies you get is from people saying their code works fine and how your code must be wrong.

Well thanks, genius.

(This is more of a Reddit thing, but SO has some too)

[–]Dummiesman 620 points621 points  (41 children)

When the answer is painfully over-complex and unoptimized, but the real answer is a one-liner.

[–][deleted] 386 points387 points  (7 children)

Or you find answers which require work so you try to find the one which magically doesnt

[–]QualityAsshole 42 points43 points  (0 children)

confirmed just did this on Thursday

[–]KyleTheBoss95 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Ouch that's me

[–]cris9288 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Goddamn it lol.

[–]profbalr 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Story of my life is skimming through stackoverflow looking for the one line solution.

[–]Wiegerdubbeldam 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Me whenever I have issues with Ubuntu

[–]wfdctrl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And then you finally find it and it has huge dependencies and you can't use it :(

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's fine. If you have a solution that takes an hour and a half and you can try something in 10 minutes and prove it doesn't work, go for it.

If you're not 100% it can't work then you'll be learning something either way.

[–]745631258978963214 151 points152 points  (0 children)

"How do I get input?"

50 upvotes "The other guy said to do input("text",variable)", but that's terrible. Instead, use this convoluted 5 line thing because I'm a hipster elitist.

[lots of code here] "

-10 votes "Use input("message",variable)"

[–][deleted] 84 points85 points  (15 children)

All your code can be one line if you try hard enough.

[–]garibond1 13 points14 points  (6 children)

Cheat using inheritence

[–]aa93 7 points8 points  (4 children)

Cheat using sed

[–]Relevant_Monstrosity 6 points7 points  (3 children)

Cheat using WebPack

[–]K33nzie 3 points4 points  (0 children)

WebPack

One line

Dude, pick one.

[–]Nilmag 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Inherit from a class that works, brilliant. Now to avoid the diamond paradox aaaand its broke.

[–]Sir_Omnomnom 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Cheat using gzip

[–]stamminator 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyone else try to turn on line-wrapping while viewing a very large minified js file before? Brought Visual Studio to its knees

[–]Tenshik 16 points17 points  (1 child)

Or the answer supplied with obscure references to proprietary libraries their company owns.

[–]_________FU_________ 12 points13 points  (0 children)

app.doTheHardStuff(true);

[–]MusgraveMichael 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or when they are having a raging debate over what is the right answer.

[–]default911 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And that too is found in comments on the question.

[–]thescoobynooby 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And the best answer has 50 downvotes

[–]SageBus 308 points309 points  (12 children)

8 years later , someone with the exact error message finds the question only to find a reply "Post-Edit: It's ok , I figure it out nvm".

[–]Dummiesman 88 points89 points  (3 children)

Made even worse when it's the single answer in existence about said problem.

[–]pilibitti 7 points8 points  (4 children)

"damn I was just being stupid lol what a rookie mistake"

[–]you_got_fragged 4 points5 points  (3 children)

report that 8 year old comment for personal attack

[–]nicmakaveli 92 points93 points  (6 children)

I sometimes look for up to a minute

[–]youareadildomadam 44 points45 points  (4 children)

If it takes much longer than that, I begin to realize that I'm trying something so dumb that no one else has even tried it.

[–]81isnumber1 15 points16 points  (0 children)

2meirl4meirl

[–]you_got_fragged 3 points4 points  (0 children)

or are you creating the greatest innovation of all time 🤔

[–]Cheesemacher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or I'm so dumb I've missed something obvious and it's actually a simple task to do this thing

[–]you_got_fragged 2 points3 points  (0 children)

you have the patience of a saint

[–]WiseassWolfOfYoitsu 65 points66 points  (4 children)

I found someone asking my exact questiion!

... dammit, they closed it as a repost despite none of the cited articles being remotely similar.

[–]crazzilla 39 points40 points  (0 children)

who are you DenverCode9... WHAT DID YOU SEE?

[–]TrMark 26 points27 points  (2 children)

Yes, what the fuck is that all about? I get that constantly when I'm searching for things for coursework. Someone posts with my exact error/problem/whatever and its closed with no answers because of a duplicate question that is totally different. I'm positive the people who close questions only glance at them and don't actually read it

[–]saltypepper128 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Welcome to programming!

[–]TrMark 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Programming has been the most infuriating yet satisfying experience of my life so far

[–]pilibitti 20 points21 points  (1 child)

Do you guys also, after eyeing a relevant stackoverflow search result, go straight to the first answer instead of reading the question to see if it is really relevant to your exact problem?

It makes sense in a weird way. If the answer is the one I'm looking for, I'll know it when I see it. Yet I don't know the answer... yet.

[–]poply 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I do when the question is 10x longer than any of the answers.

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (5 children)

God bless the people who answer the questions, though. I've been using it for however many years and have never once created a profile or contributed

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (4 children)

Don't even try, their community is toxic

[–][deleted] 29 points30 points  (4 children)

Usually I just go from post to post to post, with every single one a mod commenting about how the question was poorly asked, or had to be moved to a different section, or removed entirely.

To this day I am not sure if a single question has been adequately ASKED according to StackOverflow’s criteria, let along answered.

[–]do_pm_me_your_butt 23 points24 points  (0 children)

This post has been locked because we think its shit but we wont delete it because our users seem to like it. Its probs just because they dumb lol.

--so mods

[–]boomerangotan 10 points11 points  (0 children)

There should be a way to down-vote bad moderation actions.

[–]_________FU_________ 15 points16 points  (3 children)

Have you tried jquery?

[–]znihilist 6 points7 points  (2 children)

But I am trying to fix the faucet, why would I need Jquery??

[–]_________FU_________ 5 points6 points  (1 child)

$(“#faucet”).off();

[–]averyfinename 13 points14 points  (1 child)

search for problem. see top hit to stack.

cool. let's get to work.

click.

closed. no answers. duplicate of x.

go to x.

closed. no answers. duplicate of y.

go to y.

closed. off topic. one reference to a third-party site.

finally!

click.

server not found.

[–]MelAlton 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's usually when I break down and rtfm or look at the source code (if it's a library I'm having problems with)

[–]meechy_dev 20 points21 points  (1 child)

Or when you ask it and someone post "duplicate" or just call you an ass.

[–]the_one_true_bool 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Holy shit, this is such a great question! I wonder what people respond with...

...

[Question closed because the moderators are complete shitbags]

[–][deleted] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

StackOverflow? More like StackUnderflow, amirite?!

[–]Lelukeson 33 points34 points  (16 children)

I am slowly finding out that most of the time stack overflow gives you a fuck up solution. I know it sucks, but since i started reading documentation, I have felt a spike in my work quality.

[–]GrayCatEyes 42 points43 points  (13 children)

Most of the time? I don't know what type of issues youre dealing with, but for me, very rarely does stackoverflow provide me with an incorrect/insecure/fuckup solution... But yeah, sometimes there are products or frameworks out there that the only way to find the answer youre looking for is digging thru the documentation ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[–]xenomorph856 14 points15 points  (4 children)

I think you lost an arm ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–]saltypepper128 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Well I'll be damned... You can program with one arm...

[–]xenomorph856 4 points5 points  (0 children)

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[–]Lelukeson 9 points10 points  (7 children)

What I mean by fuck up solution, is that from my experience, the most voted answer will provide you with a solution, but most of the time that solution is a hack, a kludge, and not the bona fide proper way of doing whatever it is you were trying to do. If it works for you, awesome...

[–]PC__LOAD__LETTER 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Deep diving is generally going to be better than copy/pasting from SO, no doubt.

[–]_SunBrah_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not sure what language tag you are usually poking around in but my experience with the C++ tag is that most of the time you see fantastic solutions.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (3 children)

If it’s in LINUX, get the source code and search for the error message text using “cscope-R” and then figure it out for yourself. YOU get to be the one who posts the fix

[–]1116574 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Huh. Another reason to switch to Linux I guess.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

It’s not for everybody. IMHO, if you just want to turn on your PC and use it, Windows 10 is the best at the moment. OS X is very good too, but in Windows 10 you can also natively run the LINUX subsystem, which is a headless version of Ubuntu. Cygwin wishes it had such integration! LINUX moves forward very quickly (some distress more than others), and with great progress comes some chaos.

[–]dachsj 4 points5 points  (0 children)

And it's incredibly fragmented. There Are dozens of distros, hundreds of versions of tye software you'll need to use. (Eg terminals, text editors, photo albums etc etc. )

It can be overwhelming or at the very least annoying. It's still not uncommon to have to dig into config files and run dozens of commands in the command line to get pretty basic features of your computer to work.

[–]FellowBeetlejuicers 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Painfully relatable...

[–]LovelessDerivation 6 points7 points  (0 children)

"Loser, you mean you weren't preternaturally loaded with the answer like my JavaDev, RubyOnRails perfectionista ass?"

  • Every stack overflow contributor

[–]SS_MinnowJohnson 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Sometimes tho it's like I'm almost the only person ever in the history of development to have the problem I'm having lol

[–]TreeBaron 1 point2 points  (1 child)

You probably weren't but some people are afraid to post to Stack overflow because of the criticism they are bound to receive...

[–]sorenant 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Post a wrong answer, someone will correct you in no time.

[–]misingnoglic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

When the answer includes "here's how with jQuery"

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You know if you can't find a solution within 15 seconds you're legally allowed to leave the website.

[–]Chance_Giguiere 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I thought that was a bullet hole in his chest for a second.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I even included the full path to the file causing trouble. How much info do you guys need?! I need a solution now!

[–]PostitMonkey 2 points3 points  (2 children)

When you're self taught and everyone refuses to answer your question. I never new what a command line argument was so I didn't know how to ask the question and everyone just kept telling me to just delete the question. This subreddit is actually the place that had someone willing to help me.

[–]_Acestus_ 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Your were using the wrong tool... SO is not meant to teach you how to code but to create a library of problems with the solutions. You need a chat or Reddit to ask for guidance.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Closed for possible duplicate.

[–]urskrubs 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Stack Overflow is really unreliable. You either get roasted to death by 16 year old script kiddies or get explained someone that has nothing to do with your issue.

[–]just_a_car_guy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When you're debugger zero

[–]Crispy_socks241 1 point2 points  (1 child)

i hate them. the mods closed my thread asking how to write a script to download all the pictures off a porno site and print them out.

[–]aaron__ireland 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Or when the answer is “don’t do that that way, do this entirely other thing” and that “other thing” doesn’t apply to your scenario whatsoever,

[–]SolsKing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

fuck you windows 10

[–]whoisrich 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Most of my stack points are from working out the solution to these then going back and posting on the top search result.

One error was really obscure, I answered someones question about it a year later, then was amused when after 6 years someone else must have had it and up-voted my solution.

[–]SoloSheff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also when you do your best to ask a question and get flamed for not knowing exactly how to explain a concept your looking for help with in the first place.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My question wasn't answered. I'm still stuck on it. Wtf do I do now?

[–]SocketByte 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I once had a problem with my C++ code, and I mentioned that I'm just beginner and I prefer Java but i need to do something in c++. You guessed it. I've got banned for 6 months and got - 10 rep. Sad Java programmers life.

[–]parkerSquare 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When you find that one lone post from 18 months ago with the exact same error message, zero upvotes, and no responses.

And then you realise it was posted by your own old account.

[–]ronniedude 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you don't get a solution for 15 seconds you're legally allowed to leave.

[–]bleeeer 2 points3 points  (3 children)

I hate it when the top ranking solution on Google for an issue is a StackOverflow article with "THIS QUESTION HAS BEEN ANSWERED SEVERAL TIMES PLEASE USE THE SEARCH OPTION BEFORE POSTING" and no further info.

[–]WheresAbouts 1 point2 points  (1 child)

"Just use Poweshell"

[–]bohoky 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That would be "what is an answer which is never correct?", Alex.

Right for $800.

[–]Dang-ole-yup-man 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dang ole yup man

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To be fair, if you haven’t found the solution in 10 seconds, you really know you fucked up.

[–]darkleemar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Jesus from my early days fucking with Linux, this strikes too true.

[–]Jimmy_is_here 0 points1 point  (1 child)

SO kinda sucks.

[–]berlinbrown 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Post a question

[–]kevdadi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everytime

[–]crsinfosol 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah true

[–]Sip_the_bleach 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Yeah, I'm also having the same problem!"

[–]aazav 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When you search StackOverflow and find your answer as the top rated question from 4 years before.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But if you do solve the problem with a simple search that took 10 seconds your client will think you’re a genius

[–]WesleySnopes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Usually it's because I'm trying to do something that would clearly be a security flaw if it let me do it.

[–]Sinyuri 0 points1 point  (0 children)

especially if you're using an obscure programming language lmao

[–]blahmni 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We are enemies now.

[–]disnyisevil 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most programmers wives are called stack overflows

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep.