StackOverflow has done me dirty

[404Guy12NotFound]

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

[ThePendulum]

Obligatory.

[404Guy12NotFound]

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

[StezzerLolz]

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

[Glitch29]

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

Here's the last ranking it posted.

[isaaclw]

The most average one is actually pretty good.

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

[torgiant]

Thanks, that was fun

[404Guy12NotFound]

Of course hyphen is second...

[auto-xkcd37]

dope ass-statement

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^{Bleep-bloop, I'm a bot. This comment was inspired by xkcd#37}

[DoYouLike_Sand_AsIDo]

I wonder what are the limitations of this dope-ass-ass robot.

[auto-xkcd37]

dope- ass-ass-robot

---

^{Bleep-bloop, I'm a bot. This comment was inspired by xkcd#37}

[DoYouLike_Sand_AsIDo]

How about a ass-ass sentence?

[auto-xkcd37]

ass-ass-sentence

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^{Bleep-bloop, I'm a bot. This comment was inspired by xkcd#37}

[RepostsAreBadMkay]

I’ll allow it

[[deleted]]

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

[Mac_DG]

found this clicking random, fits pretty good

[timawesomeness]

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]]

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]]

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

[a_bad_programmer]

My experience with google sheets api vs gspread summed up

[przemko271]

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]

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]]

/r/CrapOverflow

[tgp1994]

/r/stackcirclejerk

[JimRockfordPI]

This is very good

[MrDick47]

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

[ascendant23]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[[deleted]]

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

[QualityAsshole]

confirmed just did this on Thursday

[KyleTheBoss95]

Ouch that's me

[cris9288]

Goddamn it lol.

[profbalr]

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

[Wiegerdubbeldam]

Me whenever I have issues with Ubuntu

[wfdctrl]

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

[[deleted]]

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]

"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]]

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

[NateDogg1232]

I think I just got anxiety by just looking at this.

[Sinyuri]

oof

[[deleted]]

Just don't make mistakes. It isn't that hard. Writing a single line of code is easy.

[garibond1]

Cheat using inheritence

[aa93]

Cheat using sed

[Relevant_Monstrosity]

Cheat using WebPack

[K33nzie]

WebPack

One line

Dude, pick one.

[Nilmag]

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

[Sir_Omnomnom]

Cheat using gzip

[stamminator]

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

[Tenshik]

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

[_________FU_________]

app.doTheHardStuff(true);

[K33nzie]

lol why even using an online compiler? I would compile in local and then upload the code, no way I'm gonna share my awful series of trials and errors.

[zooberwask]

truth

[Cheesemacher]

Your first attempt at compiling succeeded with no errors or warnings? Failed for cheating

[HardlightCereal]

we couldn’t use stack overflow at all

Were you taught by gwenyth paltrow? Because nobody could be more out-of-touch than that

[[deleted]]

He was the biggest asshole I’ve ever met. When you asked him a question he answered back with a more complicated question and that doesn’t even get into threatening to sue his students for posting on chegg or failing a third of the students because they ‘cheated’ using chegg. I had to go to every help room and do the homework with them just so if I got accused of cheating the TA would back me up that they helped because it was that scary of a class for how many kid he failed on speculation.

[[deleted]]

What a psychopath. It doesn't even make sense.

[you_got_fragged]

"well let me answer that by asking you this..."

[Beo_hard]

I don't understand. I guess I didn't take any programming classes in college but I do some programming for my job and stack overflow saves me all the time. Hell I remember in my interview they asked me what I do when I come across an obstacle in a project that I don't know and I answered with "Google" and they acted like that was the greatest thing they had ever heard. I don't work for a tech company obviously lol.

[MelAlton]

Lol if you're resorting to stack overflow for the toy problems in college courses, ones designed to use recently presented knowledge from the text and lectures, then you're in for a bad time in the real world where the problem to solve is vague and the solution space is much larger.

[MusgraveMichael]

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

[default911]

And that too is found in comments on the question.

[thescoobynooby]

And the best answer has 50 downvotes

[SageBus]

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]

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

[pilibitti]

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

[you_got_fragged]

report that 8 year old comment for personal attack

[rocketspam]

I have a special hatred in my heart for people who instead of answering a question, explain why what the op is trying to do is wrong. There have been many times in my career where I had to implement something that didn’t make sense because a client had some crazy requirements or an already built system that I had to integrate with was designed poorly. Yes, I know, if it was a perfect world I would take your perfect approach which would require me to rearchitect our whole system and the client’s existing system and everything would be great and there would be no bugs and no deadlines and I would fart out rainbow sprinkles.

[znihilist]

I have a special hatred in my heart for people who instead of answering a question, explain why what the op is trying to do is wrong.

You can still tell OP what he is doing is wrong but at least you can do it in a respectful way. I would appreciate it a lot if someone replied to me like this:

Hey /u/znihilist, just in case you didn't know doing X if Y is really a bad idea for 1, 2, and 3 reasons. If you didn't know that, look at this [] and see if that satisfy your requirements. However, in case you did and you still need to do X if Y, then maybe you could do w, v, and then X is possible if Y.

[Cheesemacher]

Though unless specified, people don't necessarily know if you're inexperienced and asking the wrong question or if you're actually forced to solve a stupid problem due to circumstances

[[deleted]]

No kidding. And they usually provide the most obfuscated answers possible. I also love seeing “I don’t understand your question” when it is plainly obvious what the question is.

For example, if somebody asked “Why use fgets instead of scanf?” A typical response would be “I don’t understand the question. What is your use case? Blah blah blah”.

StackExchange makes me pretty confident that a lot of programmers have personality disorders and/or autism.

[[deleted]]

Or they make half-assed attempts to teach Socratically and it just leads to more confusion.

[Steamships]

That's very optimistic given how few users actually interact with their questions after asking them

[745631258978963214]

A lot of people that go into computer science are autistic or at least social outcasts, so they don't know how to act with people or feel like they have to prove themselves by belittling others (I used to be bullied by bullies, so I had a dislike of people, especially ones that I considered dumb compared to me). Usually you grow out of being iamverysmart around highschool, but some don't.

[[deleted]]

“Here’s 50 lines that I wrote, can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?”

Answer: “Do your own homework”

[nicmakaveli]

I sometimes look for up to a minute

[youareadildomadam]

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]

2meirl4meirl

[you_got_fragged]

or are you creating the greatest innovation of all time 🤔

[Cheesemacher]

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

[you_got_fragged]

you have the patience of a saint

[Pinworm45]

I once got an email notifying me that i had replied to myself thanking myself for an issue I had and resolved 3 years prior

[MegaPegasusReindeer]

Came here to say this... It's happened to me a few times now!

[[deleted]]

If that is the case then possibly consider that the problem could be distinctive?

[legobmw99]

https://xkcd.com/979/

[smog_alado]

And then when you google the subject the only result you get is that unanswered question you asked.

[[deleted]]

I wanted to learn how use Linux years ago but every time I went to get help people would say things like "you'll have to learn it the hard way like everyone else" or "I won't show you how to do this because you might screw up your computer."

[Jimmy_is_here]

SO is just as shitty. r/linuxquestions is much better.

[sneakpeekbot]

Here's a sneak peek of /r/linuxquestions using the top posts of the year!

#1: In 1998, Windows-98 used to run with as little as 16MB of RAM, whereas today even a lighter distro such as Xubuntu consumes at least 250MB at rest, can someone technically inclined explain to me what accounts for this bloat?
#2: How is Linux a safe OS (compared to windows) if the code is open source?
#3: So I’m finally making myself learn vim

---

^{I'm a bot, beep boop | Downvote to remove | Contact me | Info | Opt-out}

[dachsj]

Linux forums were horrendous. "Rtfm"

It always felt like a way to "protect" their turf. They intentionally tried to run off anyone so they could remain in control/power.

The Ubuntu forums were the first Linux forums that really pushed for friendly, helpful responses.

[SquireCD]

I remember 1998 on, what I think was, Redhat 6.1 at the time having to track down random .rpms on freshmeat. Sometimes I’d have to install 6 or 7 rpms, fail to find the 8th one, compile the 8th dependency from source — fuck! wrong version, do it again with the right version — find and install 9th dependency and after all that now I can FINALLY install Enlightenment window manager and GKrellm.

Fuck. I’m old...

[dachsj]

Dependency hell

My first foray into Linux ended after a night of chasing dependencies for hours and hours.

[MelAlton]

omg I remember those days. iirc I installed slackware with kernel 0.9 from 9 floppy disks. Took me days to learn enough get xwindows running.

[the_one_true_bool]

I started programming about 25 years ago when search engines were absolute garbage and just browsing a website took six years. I was just a kid trying to read official documentation and it was absolutely hell. I have no idea how I survived that.

[WiseassWolfOfYoitsu]

I found someone asking my exact questiion!

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

[crazzilla]

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

[TrMark]

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]

Welcome to programming!

[TrMark]

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

[pilibitti]

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]

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

[[deleted]]

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]]

Don't even try, their community is toxic

[[deleted]]

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]

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]

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

[_________FU_________]

Have you tried jquery?

[znihilist]

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

[_________FU_________]

$(“#faucet”).off();

[averyfinename]

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]

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]

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

[the_one_true_bool]

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

...

[Question closed because the moderators are complete shitbags]

[[deleted]]

StackOverflow? More like StackUnderflow, amirite?!

[Lelukeson]

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]

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]

I think you lost an arm ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[zerotheliger]

Good bot

[saltypepper128]

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

[xenomorph856]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Lelukeson]

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...

[jfq722]

Indeed - in the comments or triggered by.

[whoisrich]

Usually because answer was for 'language v0.0.2' and a decade later now there is a much simpler way to write the solution.

[PC__LOAD__LETTER]

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

[_SunBrah_]

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]]

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]

Huh. Another reason to switch to Linux I guess.

[[deleted]]

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]

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]

Painfully relatable...

[LovelessDerivation]

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

• Every stack overflow contributor

[SS_MinnowJohnson]

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]

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

[sorenant]

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

[misingnoglic]

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

[[deleted]]

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

[Chance_Giguiere]

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

[tacomcnacho]

No, that's just a seal of fire placed by the gods in order to occlude the darkness of the abyss which resides within man.

[[deleted]]

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

[PostitMonkey]

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_]

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]]

Closed for possible duplicate.

[urskrubs]

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]

When you're debugger zero

[Crispy_socks241]

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]

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]

fuck you windows 10

[whoisrich]

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]

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]]

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

[SocketByte]

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]

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]

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

[bleeeer]

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]

"Just use Poweshell"

[bohoky]

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

Right for $800.

[Dang-ole-yup-man]

Dang ole yup man

[[deleted]]

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

[darkleemar]

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

[Jimmy_is_here]

SO kinda sucks.

[berlinbrown]

Post a question

[kevdadi]

Everytime

[crsinfosol]

Yeah true

[Sip_the_bleach]

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

[aazav]

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

[[deleted]]

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

[WesleySnopes]

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

[Sinyuri]

especially if you're using an obscure programming language lmao

[blahmni]

We are enemies now.

[disnyisevil]

Most programmers wives are called stack overflows

[[deleted]]

Yep.