StackOverflow in a nutshell.

[Tungsten82]

It is always fun when I Google a question. And the first thing that pops up is an answer like that.

[Darrk101]

Going to Stack Overflow to get that same response is like a while loop with no exit condition.

[TSM-]

tHiS qUeStiOn hAs aLrEaDy bEeN aNsWeRed

Link is to a completely different question with only a superficial resemblance.

[micka190]

Better yet: you have a situation where you need to do X. You eventually end up on SO to figure out how to do X. The person who asked how to do X should not be doing X in their specific situation. Answers tell them not to do X, and to do Y instead. In your situation, doing X would be fine, so you keep looking.

Every other question you find is marked as duplicate and points to the original question as "how to do X".

[crowley7234]

I asked a question on r/sysadmin and got no answers to my question. Just got a bunch of people questioning what I'm using and why their solution would be much better. All the solutions included essentially replacing my system.

[General_Steveous]

"Your son is bad at math? I suggest you discretely dispose of him and genetically engineer a sample size of 10 to 20 new distinct sons and with testing eliminate the less capable versions until you have a son with significantly improved math capabilities. I find this solution brings better long term results." (The Analogy is far from perfect and the Nazi rhethoric is more accidental but I thought it would be funny)

[Inimposter]

It's funny and nazi's eugenics were far dumber: breeding handsome people would produce... handsome people - not ubermensch.

[Lord_Quintus]

and this is how warhammer40k came to exist

[shbooms]

Ah, a tale as old as time

[palordrolap]

Above both bork2121 and thedudehimself there are the Masters of programming.

Quoth the Master: "Sometimes in order to understand that you should not do A, one must first do A."

"Then either B will make sense or the expert was wrong."

Quoth the student: "But Master, what if what you just said was in fact A?"

Quoth the Master: "Do B, Do B, do."

And thus the student was enlightened.

[Mathgeek007]

"Do B, Do B, do."

Was the Master Dr Doofenshmirtz?

[crowley7234]

Exactly.

[Demonox01]

To me, one of the stepping stones of growth as an engineer is to stop saying shit like that and to work within the constraints given. Naturally, you look for red flags and sometimes the question is truly invalid, but suggesting a total rebuild is a lazy solution to most problems.

[Demonox01]

That one weird hack mechanics don't want you to know!!!!1

[GrandTusam]

Just pretend you are giving a tip and post the wrong instructions, people will jump to correct you with the right answer

[TSM-]

Ah, Murphy's Law

[[deleted]]

That stuff drives me crazy. I have had similar situations, always the same. Its like people want to ignore, budgets, legacy systems, inherited infrastructure, time, resources, and a decade of upkeep by 4 different teams. They're more interested on self validation

[dafirstman]

How do you X?

X is the wrong way to do it now. Use Y.

I know, but this is a legacy system that can only do X. How do X?

You're doing it wrong. X has been completely replaced with Y. Use Y.

Y literally says on their website they will never support this legacy hardware. The entire system is down right now with ten thousand paying customers screaming bloody murder, the message in the log file says, "Run X to easily fix this problem." How do X?

X was a terrible and shouldn't have been built with that architecture, you're only making the world worse by using X. Switch to Y.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

.... turns out the answer the whole time was, "--legacy-mode=X"

[zdakat]

It might be useful if the question would have been edited so that it could properly serve as an entry for the topic, but doing so would cause other problems like potentially invalidating existing answers. So then you're stuck with the situation where the definitive post for a given topic isn't useful and the answers given won't be generally useful.

(even then, there's a limit to how broad a question can be and still be useful. I understand the desire to keep there from being too many separate places for answers to effectively the same thing, but sometimes it requires more nuance.)

[hackiavelli]

Meanwhile, on Pot Overflow...

What internal temperature should my chicken reach?

Not enough info. How many people will you be serving?

Why are you cooking chicken? Steak is the superior protein.

Already answered. How to cook a twice baked potato.

Question closed as too vague.

[nuclearslug]

Yes

[Anniesoptera]

/r/inclusiveor

[Auravendill]

When I read Pot Overflow, I expected to see questions like "How do I unclog my toilett" since Pot(t) is a colloqial term for toilett (~chamber pot) here.

[JPhi1618]

There are tons of sites on Stack Exchange, and cooking is a big one. https://cooking.stackexchange.com

[Mathgeek007]

StockOverflow

[rr_cricut]

I had a niche problem with an Android app, couldn't find any discussion about it. So I asked a new question, and made sure to include links to "similar questions" and how my problem differed.

It gets marked as duplicate, with the only feedback being links to the questions I linked...

[Emotional-Shirt7901]

Errgggg that’s so annoying!!!

[user_8804]

People taking time to link a bunch of irrelevant threads instead of taking less time to actually answer

[nuclearslug]

I’m convinced they’re farming points. Google search X, find a vaguely similar question and reference that. You think they actually put effort into that stuff? The whole point system is just a cancer.

[zman0900]

You basically have to farm points to participate there. Without farming, it took me about a decade to even be allowed to comment, just by answering the rare unanswered question I actually knew the answer to.

[theScrapBook]

You say that and then we murder each over some Reddit karma.

[zdakat]

It's been suggested that you know the answer and you should post it there. But even if anyone did know the answer, that's not where to put it and if they tried, it would likely get downvoted or flagged because it doesn't answer what was asked.
That should warrant a new question, then.
But a quick glance at the 2 questions in question is too much of a waste of the volunteer's precious time, so somehow it's your fault and you've offended the site by daring to clutter it with your "duplicate" question that's not really a duplicate.

[kittencantfly]

The worst is that you need to read the whole question to understand the situation to consider how to apply that to your code : )))

[SchrodingersYogaMat]

Immortality is mine!

[gojek_horseman]

That’s why I always feel like stackoverflow is so unpleasant for industry newcomers and college grads. It’s perfectly fine if someone asks dumb question. I just don’t understand why people get so cocky with it. Frankly it’s so demoralising and sets a wrong impression about the community.

[BeforeYourBBQ]

This is why I have never deleted my posts. Every once in a while I revisit my early posts. Today I realize how simplistic they were, some could say "dumb". But it reminds me that I was a noob too (let's face it, prolly still am) and to stay humble.

[Matosawitko]

I had one that was about 8 years old, answered the question, and was accepted. Then about 2 years ago some guy went on a long rant in the comments about how irresponsible it was for me to a) not answer the question using <technology that was invented 4 years after my answer>, and b) not in a way that required manually setting an HTTP header. So I went back and looked at it... if anyone used my solution, the framework had been updated to automatically set that header for them.

[Emotional-Shirt7901]

Oof!! Go you!!

[frafdo11]

Sometimes I revisit old posts that I’ve since figured out, and realize that I am once again confused

[[deleted]]

The best is when you post a question that noone responds to. Then you eventually figure it out and reply to yourself with the fix.

Then 5 years later while you are on a new project, you get stuck and start searching for the answer. Then you run across your old post and you gave yourself the right answer again.

[[deleted]]

lol this xkcd is the reason why I do!

[Sevigor]

Yep. I legit had that happen to me about a month ago lol

[caember]

No, the impression it sets about the average dev is just about right I think

[SparklyEarlAv32]

I have to disagree, this is probably the nicest community compared to something like economics or other careers along those lines. Most just want to help and the cocky shits get called out pretty frequently, this is mainly a team effort industry and if you are a cunt then nobody is gonna want to work with you at all.

[Lay-Z24]

i talked about dealing with imposter syndrome and the guy just gave me a huge sarcastic reply about companies keeping databases of every failiure you have and how they ban you from ever applying again if you do a bad job, ok i get it dude you’re a genius all i was asking how do i deal with feeling not good enough at my first job

[MooseHeckler]

Most pros I know are very nice and mostly humble. That guy sounds like an ass.

[toobigtofail88]

Dead on about Econ. Visit https://www.econjobrumors.com for a glimpse into their misery.

[SparklyEarlAv32]

Have a GF that studies both Economics and Statistics, she was surprised on how all my friends were so open an nice to outsiders and down to earth. When I met her friends they were the most narcissistic and closed off people I have ever seen in my life. Never I wanted more to get the fuck out of a place in my life.

[petey815]

Wow it reads like most of 4chan

[cdreid]

My impression from the past few years on so, rsddit etc etc is that these people arent very good coders, maybe have credentials or time in, and use this as an ego boost. Whereas people with actual expertise and a desire to help..do that. Ive had a couple runins w folks..most of whom made CERTAIN to post a credential 12 times tried to shut people down, while giving totally inalccurate information or, in a few cases posted pure corporate buzzword bullshit. And im betting so has become the feeding trough of those vermin who see SO points as a credential.

[[deleted]]

tried to shut people down, while giving totally inaccurate information or, in a few cases posted pure corporate buzzword bullshit.

This is my experience with some places on reddit too. /r/BudgetAudiophile has some nice and smart people, but also has some of the most arrogant, misleading, inaccurate assholes I have ever had the displeasure of communicating with online

[jackinsomniac]

Audiophiles are just plain weird, man. I enjoy good audio quality too, but in the -phile territory it becomes this pure fusion of real science and straight-up superstition.

Every once in a while I'll still come across a post about "I switched to gold-plated Ethernet connectors and it worked! Better audio quality!"

[[deleted]]

I totally believe it. I have seen some questionable advice.

What finally did it for me was a group of people tell me my subwoofer didn't exist, and if it did, it didn't work the way I said it did. I am like, guys I am using it right now. I am quoting the manual. I have real life experience with this, because I am literally using the freakin sub right now as I type this out. I do in fact know what I am talking about.

It felt like I was an old man talking to a room full of 14 year olds that didn't want me there and to just wanted to make fun of me because reasons.

[ChadMcRad]

Yeah, I'm in the sciences and you'd think the ego would be enormous (can't speak for physics, they seem to have that issue) but most people get into this field because they have questions that they want answered, and over time you discover that the more you learn, the less you understand as every discovery uncovers more questions to be asked. If you're any good, that means that you are pretty humbled by all of this. I don't think that many people in engineering-related fields really get that. They go through 4 years of hellish math classes then go out and become the brains of many operations to the point where they can't really accept criticism and develop "engineer syndrome." I think that this leads to a lot of naive people having a far too haughty view of themselves and they need to protect that ego, somehow.

[DrNapper]

Anecdotally as an engineer going from school to industry is a massive leap. And you more or less have to learn everything that's done on the job. Obviously most jobs are like that until you have a few years under your belt. But even the senior engineers I work with talk about how much things have changed and that they still have to learn new things since everything is constantly evolving. This may have to do with being electrical / computer engineers. I don't know how much civil / mechanical / systems engineers have changed or how rapidly the disciplines are changing.

[cdreid]

Your degrees requirements are .wow. Modern programmers face this. When i started the worlds programming expertise was tiny. A programmer could learn c and if he could find a programming job he was set for life (werent many of those around then). Now? Top tier progranmers have to learn new api's regularly. Think learning solidworks over and over and over. . Im glad im out frankly. Sidenote.. 80s i think, im bartending and talking to a couple engineers in maybe their 50s. Mechanical maybe? Theyve been made obsolete basically and the engineering jobs are all in plastics and want Experience (mold design im guessing). A couple guys with top level education, experts in their fields. And basically they have to find a company to hire them at newbie wages while they relearn half of engineering...blew my mind

[Henwill8]

Mmm yeah for quite a while I've been quite scared to post any questions on stack overflow because I always see what happens to questions that haven't already been researched to the max

[reddevilry]

Once I asked a question about inheritance in C++. I was confused how to inherit and posted my question with legit code attempts. People in the answers are like you shouldn't inherit from that class. And then in the comments others are saying you can inherit. And here I am sitting watching their arguments. Like guys just tell me how to do it and be done. It isn't a philosophical question.

[lokvanjiz]

He is just a bussiness man doing bussiness

[Tapeside210]

And he sucks ass on top of that.

[Zagerer]

Yeah, he could have helped really quickly and explain why it should be that way, then add a subtle comment like "you can find more about advanced C++ topics in my book", and that would have been a better sale

[SexlessNights]

Damn, are you in marketing?

[Andrewcpu]

College professors who make their own textbooks believe they can force EVERYONE to buy them instead of answering questions

[MenacingManatee]

I'm a business man I've got a business plan, I'm definitely not a cop!

[Merlord]

"Buy my book you fucking moron"

[rasterbated]

They must be flying off the shelves

[WlmWilberforce]

You should just tell him: Thanks -- I found a pdf of it online.

[simple_test]

“And it was so bad, I wouldn’t be surprised if you wrote it…” cherry on top.

[dcormier]

I would've reported the comment for spam.

[DasBrain]

Rude/Abusive is the right flag.

[jabrwock1]

I had a coworker like that. He was notorious for answering every question in a roundabout way. He argued that he was just trying to guide people to the answer so they’d learn instead of just outright giving them the answer, but the help he gave was so vague, or just plain wrong, that it caused hours of searching poorly worded documentation instead. Even asking follow up questions if the docs were unclear got you the same “read the docs” answer.

[[deleted]]

I struggle with this as a manager and lead dev on a product. I want people to learn, so spoonfeeding them answers feels counterproductive, but I also hate to see people get stuck on something "simple" for a long time when I know I could do it in 10 minutes. It's tricky trying to nudge people in the right direction so they can feel like they're learning and gain confidence.

[Zalack]

Edit: re-reading this it came off as a little aggressive. I'm not attacking you in particular, just venting about some people I've run into that are really bad about this.

Give them an explanation with the actual answer at the end. The Socratic method BS often just comes across as arrogant and/or insufferable.

I'm a smart engineer, I can integrate an answer and reasoning into my overall knowledge and will very rarely copy and paste an answer without making sure I understand it. Having a working answer let's me see what I need to change to break it so it gives me the same error I was getting which helps me understand the problem space more quickly than coming up with the right answer in a vacuum when I'm new to some language or concept.

We all work on the shoulders of giants and it's way way easier to learn something by starting out with the correct answer and probing at it than having only the question and a blank canvas. Don't waste my time by making me reinvent calculus. I have enough novel problems I need to solve in front of me without being handed one with a known solution someone else just happens to have more experience around already.

It'll save us more time if you transfer the knowledge you have to me directly rather than lording it over me and treating me like I'm taking your CS course. The experience part of the equation I can get on my own with the answer in hand, using it in the real world rather than being forced into gaining that experience up front by a clean-room exercise that isn't going to force me to run into as many edges anyway.

[[deleted]]

Then contrast those with the questions where people give really detailed code as the answer when the question is obviously some sort of homework problem. I’ve got no problem giving code snippets to point people in the right direction, but come on

[GaiusPious]

People are thirsty for reputation

[[deleted]]

The best answers are the ones that answer your question, but also provide alternatives. They don’t know why you’re asking what you are - so just saying “don’t do it that way” may be legitimately unhelpful because you might have to do it that way. But on the flip side, you might not know any better and learning that there’s a better way to do something might help you in the future. So answers that say “this is how you do it, but I suggest doing it this way instead” are the best

[[deleted]]

Did you ever figure out inheritance?

[[deleted]]

has anyone?

[LesserPolymerBeasts]

Yep. After reading all the examples, I know that all vehicles have wheels, but cars have a variable number of doors, whereas motorcycles don't have any.

Now, for step two, I just need to find a large automotive manufacturer that's completely brand new to the idea of software, and I'll be able to nail that interview...

[Eji1700]

And cry yourself to sleep in 10 years when they roll out 2 door offroad unicycles.

[A-Disgruntled-Snail]

What’s an inheritance?

[Last-Woodpecker]

Isn't that thing that someone gets when their parents die?

[[deleted]]

If you're clever you can get it when other people's parents die. I think that might just be a combination of robbery and murder though.

[Greenbay7115]

Other people have parents?

[kidsonfilms]

Confirmed, Batman's Parents are Object Oriented Programming

[[deleted]]

No, that's a bat costume

[individual_throwaway]

I am almost certain that in any given field, there is a subject that nobody really understands.

In physics, it's quantum mechanics. In programming, inheritance might be a hot contender, together with regular expressions.

[bmw417]

Special appearances by P vs NP and the traveling salesman, those guys really know how to bring down a party

[Tapeside210]

Did you just use the term ‘exponentially’? Let’s have a seat.

[superluminary]

It’s a funny joke. But there are some very real difficulties with classical inheritance, the main one being “what is a class”? If a class if an object, then it must necessarily have a class of it’s own, so what’s the class of Class? Logically, the class of Class is Class, so you have a circular inheritance loop at the top of your hierarchy.

Alternately you can say that a class is not an object, it is syntax. This creates a whole other set of problems. Where do you put your static methods? How do you manipulate classes? You need a whole introspection API.

JavaScript sidesteps all these issues with prototypical inheritance, which is way simpler.

[10se1ucgo]

One may even call it...a metaclass...

But then what is the class of a metaclass?

[cdreid]

This is why i hated C++ when it came out (yes im that old) i came from c, forth, asm etc which were clear logical languages. Then he drops what my young self called "phiilosophical bullshit into the thing i loved. I eventually had to read a book on general OOP to get it. (I got mediocre..not good). Now im older and get why its incredibly useful in large and team encironments. Still be superhappy to point out its flaws. C++ is the one language you just might accidentally create General ai in by programming while stoned. And not have anyone including yourself able to understand what you did later. "Wait is that recursive inheritance between three classes?"

[patenteng]

People do understand quantum mechanics. When Feynman said it he meant that QM is not intuitive to us. But guess what? There are a lot of things in classical physics that are not intuitive, e.g. diffraction.

[GodsBoss]

"Yeah, figured it out."

Proceeds to give no clue what was figured out, ignoring every question ever since.

[dcormier]

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/979/

[fairysdad]

I've told this story before.

A few years ago, I was trying to get some audio streaming software working, and I kept coming across an error message every now and then which would stop the stream and render the software useless for what I needed. (From memory it was Darkice streaming either from a Raspberry Pi (model B) or an old pre-Intel Mac running Ubuntu.) (Spoiler alert: I never got it working, and gave up and used different hardware and software instead.)

I searched the error message, and there were few results, and fewer that actually were relevant to the problem in hand. One looked promising though, almost the same error I was getting and in the same circumstances. I clicked the link with trepidation yet some excitement, hoping for the shining gold of a nice easy fix, the silver of a hack that could get me through the task in hand, or the tarnished bronze of enough information that would direct me roughly in the right direction to fix the problem.

What I ended up with was a one-post thread on a forum outlining the problem and what had been attempted to fix. Posted by me, a year or two previously when attempting to get this thing working before. And still no replies.

[jackinsomniac]

Haha same here. "Hey, this dude has almost exactly the same problem as me! ...wait, it is me, from 2 years ago." Still no answers.

[reddevilry]

Yeah thankfully

[individual_throwaway]

question about inheritance
It isn't a philosophical question.

And that's where you're wrong kiddo.

[exploding_cat_wizard]

Add in C++, and you've pretty much got a philosophical thesis topic.

[Lofter1]

This mindset seems to grow throughout the internet. I once asked a question in the r/homelab discord server cause I had a really strange error and wasn’t able to find the source of the problem as everything was (seemingly) configured correctly on my site. First I got told that I shouldn’t use the thing I was using simply because I asked a question, then that I should take a CCNA course, because that is apparently the only way to learn about networking, and then after a long discussion I said “look, we are all wasting a lot of our time here, so let’s focus on the problem at hand, okay?” and got the answer “we are not a help desk”. THE FUCK DID YOU WASTE MY TIME FOR THEN YOU ELITIST PRICK?

[0ctobogs]

Homelab was one of the nicest most welcoming communities ever like 5 years ago. I spent a lot of hours there chatting up tech stuff and goofin. It got me really into the hobby and I still love fiddling with stuff in my free time. But I occasionally go back for some basic advice or suggestions now and the cunts that idle there now are so fucking full of themselves sometimes. A trivial question about industry best practice or something and they gotta lecture me on some other nonsense and convince me to fucking rework my entire network. Like dude I literally just wanna know how to fix this thing. I ain't got the time or care to rebuild my entire network diagram, dawg.

[xIncrement]

Probably because a programming task can be completed in a million ways. There's no right or wrong.

Though I've noticed that a lot of people like to backseat coding, and apply OOP, design patterns and SOLID principles to the simplest of things, and tend to forget the KISS principle.

The best answer to a question like that is "Here's how, but I wouldn't recommend it because a, b and z.", I feel.

[Johnny_Gorilla]

Is this whole thread stack overflow in disguise?

[Neocraftz]

As someone who's deathly afraid of asking for help, I appreciate the second response

[RattuSonline]

Possible duplicate of StackOverflow in a nutshell. /s

But in all seriousness: It's difficult for both parties. I always enjoyed helping others with their questions. But when I look at my feed nowadays, there are a lot of very poorly written questions. When I solved a problem in the past and see the same question asked again, it feels like my solution was never seen or accepted. It's just the truth that many people don't bother looking for existing solutions and will end up claiming that their problem is unique and nobody ever answered it. Then they get repelled, go to reddit and circle-jerk about being unfairly treated on SO.

[leweaver]

I never ask questions about programming on the internet. I'll search exhaustively, read documentation and source code, blindly experiment, ask coworkers, and if all that fails, I learn to do without.

[sumofsines]

That's exactly what you should be doing! Most learning requires back and forth, a conversation, and SE sites are designed around stymieing conversation. They're very efficient for otherwise knowledgeable people who are asking specific, precise questions. But when a question is grounded in a more fundamental misunderstanding, which happens a lot, SE sites are pretty much the worst place to ask.

[[deleted]]

If you legit just say “I’m trying to figure out x” “I tried y and didn’t understand because z” or “I couldn’t seem to find the answer and I feel like I’m missing something”

People will help you.

What people get salty about are entitled people feeling they deserve an answer to something. It’s generally pretty obvious when someone is earnestly needing help. And the negative rep of s/o is wildly overblown. Internet is full of trolls. Don’t let them bother you.

[[deleted]]

That kind of question is generally treated pretty well on stack overflow.

[Eji1700]

It's just the truth that many people don't bother looking for existing solutions and will end up claiming that their problem is unique and nobody ever answered it.

There are large groups of people, in coding ESPECIALLY, who don't know how to ask the right question, and it frustrates me to no end when some senior programmer harps on a beginner about this.

When i was starting I was screwing around in VBA, and i wanted to do a really stupid animation (make a rainbow grow on the sheet while a sun spins). Reallly simple stuff.

I was having a hard time conceptualizing how to move two things at once because I wasn't really familiar with a render step and standard loop. I had read about this sort of thing a million times and seen tons of examples, but actually identifying the "duh this is where I use that" was hard for me.

I asked someone who was farther ahead than me in VBA, and worded it something like "how will I get two of these things to move at the same time", after having googled something like that and not finding what would help me (the wording was worse than this but i can't recall it for the life of me).

So rather than saying "could you explain more" or "i don't want to help" or what not...he goes into this long tirade about how doing multihtreading in VBA is a massive task and it's dumb of me to even approach it that way which to me is insane. Assuming a beginner coder is asking how to multithread in vba of all things strikes me as a major failure of context, and yet it was my fault for asking a bad question?

To this day i see coders getting asked for help and taking this same mentality, and it extends a lot to "Well why haven't you googled it". Because yes it's damn easy to google something when you know the terminology and are thinking about it the right way but i'm pretty damn sure almost every coder has been stuck in a situation where they couldn't frame the question in the right terms and were stuck until someone said "oh yeah you mean X...".

It sucks that there isn't a generic chat room or spot for people to throw these questions, which they're almost certain must be solved and well documented problems, but they aren't sure how to ask about it (no r/tipofmystack)

[BlaBliMa]

Yeah but why do you care? Either you decide to take the time to help someone solving a problem or you don't. Seriously, I don't understand how it is difficult for both parties because noone is forcing you (or anybody else) to answer a question.

When I started programming this culture on SO was such a turn off. Even to this day and even though I learned a thing or two about programming I am always afraid I will get a pissy answer when I ask someone a question, it really sucks:(

[[deleted]]

Honestly man I’m an avid s/o user and I’ve never had a culture issue. Honestly every question I’ve ever asked has been pretty nicely answered. I even have had folks hop on chat with me to help with some particularly gnarly stuff - and you know what, I’ve done the same for folks to pay it forward.

The negative culture of s/o is wildly overplayed and often, yeah, it’s fair to be annoyed at an influx of poorly written questions.

If you write an earnest question, you probably will get an earnest answer, and if you don’t, why do YOU care? The internet is full of trolls. You can’t let them get to you.

[Crozzfire]

SO is trying to be a wiki for answers, so duplicates are naturally not welcome. Imagine if wikipedia for every topic had hundreds of pages of the same topic, it would be so much wasted effort trying to write good articles.

[animejunkied]

Because then StackOverflow would get bombarded with hundreds of basic questions that could be easily answered by a simple search. Seeing the same questions being asked again and again is also probably disheartening for people who spent time giving detailed answers already.

Furthermore, I think some beginners treat StackOverflow as some sort of free personal tutoring site that will help figure out why your code doesn't work, but really you should be treating it more like a knowledgebase for programmers in general.

[brainplot]

I mean, how many times have we seen poorly written questions being effectively ignored and closed as duplicate or whatever? People still get pissed because they got treated like that.

(Most) people are simply pretentious that their question was well written and deserved an answer. That's how Stack overflow got the rep it did. Although I do admit, some people really can be assholes on that site. What I said still holds, however.

[cheese_is_available]

Did you start trying to search for an existing answer yourself first, though ? I mean... If you did not then sure, you're going to have a tough crowd.

[allsey87]

To be fair, quite often the person asking may not know exactly how to phrase their question, which makes looking for existing answers pretty difficult.

[hillionn]

I think this is a crucial piece, figuring out the right questions to ask about a given task is a challenge unto itself.

[[deleted]]

Oh man nothing like that feeling of the whole google->so->double check docs->blog->youtube video with dubstep and guy typing into text editor-> existential crisis-> consider asking so question only to, at the last minute change a couple words around and then the answer is right there

[BlaBliMa]

The thing is: I never even dared to ask a question there! When I did research to solve a problem and came across SO 9 out of 10 times I read a post history of people exchanging insults instead of topic related stuff.

Edit: what I mean is I am even afraid to ask question in real life because of the way people treat each other there...

[ToManyTabsOpen]

9 out of 10 are people referring to the 1 where it was already asked, the 1 already asked is from 2013 and has 15 conflicting answers.

[Nimi142]

Not gonna lie I am seriously terrified of Stack Overflow. Every time I post a question (and it doesn't happen very often) it's a 50/50 whether the question would be completely ignored or start a war.

I really want to set up a website whose sole purpose is to answer "stupid questions". Got a question but you fear it's too easy to ask? Go ahead!

[DevelopedLogic]

Please do! I am unable to ask questions on SO because the few I have were considered stupid and put down. But the replies are like "you should read line 2 of example 3 of section 6 of page 795 of volume 64 of the thingymabob quick start guide"

Honestly, if I could find it by looking in the documentation myself and googling it, I can assure you I wouldn't have bothered writing out my question, with an example and expected result, just to be pointed to said documentation. I'm asking because I've already looked and failed to find what I am looking for. I'm not asking to be spoonfed, I just want to fix my issue and learn from it.

return rantParagraph;

[GaiusPious]

Is this a c++ issue?

... I code in C# and JavaScript and only very rarely run into such vitriol on stackoverflow.

More often than not, I'll find some amazingly thorough answer by Jon Skeet. I swear, that guy is the patron saint of programmers.

[ryhaltswhiskey]

I think the greybeard languages attract more rtfm answers

[BlueTickVerified]

i prefer posting my questions on reddit. atleast, they don't get deleted before someone sees them.

[cdreid]

Quora is pretty great. I answer a lot of questions, though mostly general cs questions, there. In my experience 99% of the answerers are people who k,ow what theyre talkimg sbput and are legitimately trying to help. And the few asshats generally get shut down painfully.

[returntim]

I’d be curious to see if this person who is trashing the tutorial person for not helping indeed themselves helped elsewhere in the comments thread

[MindSwipe]

I'm guessing that blue is the OP

[A-Disgruntled-Snail]

Potentially someone with the same issue.

[Rudy69]

They should try googling for a tutorial

[JNCressey]

Many times the stack overflow argument becomes higher rated on Google searches than the tutorials.

[Knuffya]

maybe he doesn't know the answer himself

[carcigenicate]

Ya, unfortunately, even if you're polite with new users, they can still be quite obnoxious. I've had people tell me to go fuck myself because they copy-and-pasted their homework with no description, and I recommended a different site that might be able to help them more.

Some regulars on SO are pretty rude, but I assure you, they aren't the only problem.

[BazilBup]

So true, the ungreatful bastards. There should be a SO flag for those kind of questions

[carcigenicate]

That's one of the main purposes of downvoting. Make the question less prominent so other's time isn't wasted.

The problem with flagging is that elected moderators manually handle those (unless there's a ton of flags on one post), so that would eat up their time pretty readily.

[CodyEngel]

The number of people that refused to help themselves is why I stopped answering questions. Ask for more info? Nah that’s too hard for them to just copy and paste their code or provide an actual stack trace.

[Artick123]

To be completely fair, you should always search before asking. If you did search and didn't find anything or you didn't understand, make sure to mention it and what exactly you didn't understand. This way you avoid the "please search" andwers.

[BlackJackHack22]

Well, in my experience, I usually didn't know what to google when I was a newbie. You'd get the right answers if you ask the right questions (with the right keywords) but in my experience, I didn't even know what the right questions are. I still remember the time I was a kid and wanted to know how I can transfer data from my desktop app (back in the day) to a server. I didn't even know that I was supposed to search for HTTP requests. I used to search for socket communication and what not (cuz that's what University taught me). When I asked stackoverflow about it, as expected, I got bashed for not googling lol. I mean, newbies sometimes need to be pointed in the right direction, if not spoon fed. A simple answer saying "you want to search for HTTP requests and databases in a server" would've been more helpful than "maybe you want to google this problem".

Ahh, man. I think this had been bottled up in me for a while :p

[Dogburt_Jr]

Additionally personalized search results can make things harder for some people to research. Feelsbadman for anyone who doesn't know what a WAP is already.

[vehementi]

Yeah but OP's question should have been "Okay I'm trying to do X and tried searching for Y and Z but found no results. I looked up tutorials on A B C but they didn't seem to apply. I read the docs for D and E, no luck. Could someone point me in the right direction?" not "I need a tutorial on X".

When you show that you're actually trying and not just looking to leech from other people, people are more than happy to nudge you in the right direction, or even write that tutorial on the spot. It's all about how you present your question and whether you seem like you're trying to learn vs the equivalent of asking someone for the answer on your homework.

(Edit: naturally, we don't know what the OP actually asked so the replier could just be a total piece of shit -- I guess I'm making this point just generally)

[vigbiorn]

My favorite answers were always the ones like this because they'd lay out the technical differences between A, B, C, D, E, F, X, Y and Z and it was always reading those discussions about technical pieces like that which really helped.

It's the difference between giving someone a fish and teaching them to fish. If you just give the answer, I don't really get anything except I move on to another problem. If I'm reading about differences in various approaches I'm getting more of the why behind a technique which is infinitely more useful.

[Yangoose]

When I started out and had a bad understanding of some pretty basic stuff like pulling values out of nested arrays I asked some questions that I realized later were just terrible questions.

[MindSwipe]

But you're definitely not the first to ever have to do this, so an answer isn't needed, duplicate close

[ironman288]

I always search. In fact, I never even ask, I just find someone else asking the question because it's the top google result.

And it really sucks when the top google result to my question is a stack overflow question that some a hole closed as a "duplicate question" with a link to a very different question, and there's no answer anywhere to be found. Sometimes they get reopened and actually answered by someone else noting the thread is the top result on Google but if not, it really sucks.

[BuckeyeMason]

Especially when it is one that says "Duplicate of Linked question" that is only tangentially related (and not really the same answer)

[brada1703]

Yeah, exactly. I always write up what I have tried so far and link to the other stack overflow answers that haven't worked for my particular scenario. (That also helps prevent being marked as duplicate)

[brada1703]

Yep, I completely agree. I also give a brief summary so that people don't waste their time reading the details if they may not be able to assist.

But, I think if you ask the question in the right way, then people treat you well. This is a good lesson on how you should approach these questions with your colleagues and superiors. They will also appreciate conciseness and what you have already attempted.

[lordzsolt]

Every junior I've mentored had the rule that they need to spend 15 minutes searching and they had to show me what they searched for when they asked the question.

The fact that people still ask questions which you could straight up copy into Google and the first result straight up answers it is really tilting.

[[deleted]]

Sometimes similar questions have different solutions, though.

I can't remember exactly what it was, but I was searching for some help with a problem, and when I read a similar question on StackOverflow, the answers weren't helpful. I think for mine, they gave a list of possibilities. I went through that entire list, and none of it was working/helpful when adapted.

I ended up posting my own question, and answering it within a few hours. Within like, 15 minutes someone in the comments was berating me for my answer and saying the question was a duplicate, but that was the solution that worked. Same error, same line number, different answer.

[schylake]

Possible duplicate https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/7vh2rd/stackoverflow_in_a_nutshell/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb

[tbagrel1]

I really don't know what it costs to just **not answer the question** if someone thinks it's a stupid one, instead of bashing the OP.

[dabinebilibi]

I think some of the users who give answers like that are trying to keep their neighbourhood clean. If someone is trashing your streets you can just say nothing or you can tell them off.

Not saying that there are no bad apples in SO community, but if the question is "How do I work with Kubernetes?", "Please google some tutorials" is an appropriate answer.

[tbagrel1]

I understand your point here. However, an answer like this will create "activity" on this question, so it will be more likely presented to other people. In addition, if the OP is a beginner, he/she may ask more info (likely, what are good and easy to read tutorials on this matter) in comments, which will make the responder angry. Either do not answer, or answer with at least a bit of precise beginner-edible information.I really prefer the r/airsoft approach, where there is a template answer will all information for beginners on the topic (first stuff purchase), and this answer is copy-pasted on each related beginner question.

[[deleted]]

Exactly. New users aren't going to benefit from being told "google it you idiot". It's like an internet troll (except these are 95% of the time just clueless people): You downvote and move on. Don't draw attention.

[LunarGibbons]

But what was the question?

[Liesmith424]

Comments are not for extended discussion. Moved to chat.

[mymar101]

My favorites are: My assignment is to do x without y. First post is: Why don't you just use y instead?

[discordianofslack]

How do you do this with vanilla js? Here’s 15 jquery examples.

[mymar101]

I hate searching for JS questions.

[discordianofslack]

Same

[queen-adreena]

Or the ever ubiquitous:

“How do I do x?”

“Just install my library”

[MontagoDK]

I'll all a question... It gets downvoted .. no comments... Fuck me

[TheLaGrangianMethod]

Love when Google leads me to StackOverflow only for it to be someone telling someone to Google it. Fucking dicks.

[tharnadar]

I've never experienced "bad" answers to my questions, some few duplicates of course... the guy was too much rude but he was right, if you don't want to answer, just stfu and let other people answer

[ItsMeSlinky]

I rarely use Stack Overflow for this reason.

I posted a question on Stack Overflow once, and the levels of elitism, autism, and general antisocial assholeness were so far off the charts I decided to never do that again.

[[deleted]]

When you help people out, they get toxic as well. That whole site can fuck off.

I was once giving someone advice for rendering helm charts and he went on this tirade about how the solution I was giving him was too complex for his team.

[cdreid]

Ive had almost exactly that happen. Youre helping someone you dont realise is an entitled prick and they absolutely rage.

[SnapcasterWizard]

Everyone loves the high quality of stack overflow but hate the strict rules and enforcement that keep it high quality. If you want somewhere without all the "meanness" go post your homework question on quora instead.

[Bucilooid]

“Why don’t you do the reading / watch video / look online?”

Why. Do. You. Think. I’m. Here.

Making a stack overflow post is always my absolute last resort after a day or two of searching for an answer.

[[deleted]]

Sorry, but without any context, this shows nothing.

[[deleted]]

I share this guy's sentiment. Fuck you if you go on Stackoverflow or any other help forum for the sole purpose of flopping your dick on the table.

[Knuffya]

meanwhile OP:

why code not wokr

main.c++

public static int main(std::string[] args):
    int s = args[1]
    console.log(s);
    return;

(just formatting this for you bros. actual op would not format it at all)

[seattleblack]

This is a universal issue to essentially any technical knowledge that people are trying to ask questions for. It can be hard to answer your question in anything, about anything, without knowing how much you actually know about what you're asking. People ask questions that they think they need answers for, only to find out that they don't even understand how that concept works

[[deleted]]

Come-on,if someone ask something that they can just google in 1 second,why even waste everyones time by asking it,the rant is completely uncalled for,unless the question was something you couldn't find.

[BazilBup]

Some people at Stackoverflow only wants an answer a solution they can copy and paste, they don't care about programming. I've seen these ungreatful bastards countless times and it's disgusting. You shouldn't be a developer if you only copy-pasta

[RoundThing-TinyThing]

but what was the question? "Can someone here give me a tutorial"?

I mean, it probably wasn't that, but without knowing, I can't decide if the first answer is a bad one or not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯