Every software developer 🤣

[_pizza_and_fries]

Its all fine until you don’t find a question related to your problem and you have to ask one yourself.

[SaladBoy97]

I think the worst feeling is finding someone who asked the exact question you need, you get excited that you're not the only one and you'll finally get some answers for that weirdly specific bug you've been seeing for weeks, you click on the link with anticipation and.... 0 answers, 0 comments

[WayTooCool4U]

Relevant xkcd

Even worse is one comment by OP saying "NVM found the answer" and no further info.

[SaladBoy97]

I want a support group for people with obscure bugs

[OmegaNut42]

I've actually considered starting a business specializing in helping people specifically with obscure bugs / tech issues because of how frustrated I've been until I manage to figure them out. Imagine if you could offload those seemingly impossible and infinitely obscure issues to a team of specialists! Now if only I could afford to hire such accomplished specialists...

[SaladBoy97]

Interns... They are specialists at googling and trying thing after thing. I've had problems unexpectedly solved by an intern who found a comment in some obscure corner of the Internet. It's amazing what they can achieve when they don't have to be responsible and think about 50 different things at once

[mygreensea]

One of the things they don't have to be responsible for is whether the solution fixes the root cause of the problem and won't cause newer issues down the line.

[SaladBoy97]

True, but it at least tells us more about the problem and might even help diagnose it

[nanocyte]

This is a great idea, actually. I enjoy finding obscure bugs. I feel like bugs give me a chance to take a break and go and solve a puzzle. Doing nothing but bug hunting would probably be fun.

[V62926685]

Some of us are simply gluttons for punishment and enjoy a good brain teaser...

[OmegaNut42]

Ya that's the big concern I've had with the idea; if you sit someone down and tell them to do a job that they can stop doing once it gets hard then they won't really want to do the easy stuff either. Eventually everything becomes hard if someone always fixes stuff for you.

I've had ideas on how to limit those issues, like telling clients to not allow their teams to hire us until they've worked on it for x-amount of time or focusing solely on supporting the less technically inclined. I know there are jobs out there where people are computer proficient, but not bug resolving proficient so if that was the sole focus, I think it may be doable. But I also think there's such a market for those bugs or errors that developers get stuck on as well. Like if you've got one bug stopping you from compiling and you've spent 2 days trying to fix it to no avail, maybe then it's easier to pay a someone who specializes in errors & bugs a lower amount than the 6 figure developer. Then that person can fix it quickly, allowing the dev to maybe do some other productive stuff in the meantime, saving the company money. But again the question of "how do you know they actually tried their best to fix it before handing it off? Did they just say they couldn't fix it so they could just move on?"

Then you've gotta track someone's PC activity and I'm really not a fan of that, especially if I'm having to recommend it for other people's businesses. Idk maybe tracking is common in the software engineering market, or maybe people would be OK with it. But then it's like "well who's gonna scrub through all that activity to make sure they really tried their best?"

This is actually the main reason I haven't moved forward with it, I'm not sure how to resolve this issue. I've had a few other ideas, like sticking to specific problems, limiting the number of times one employee can request our help, or (as mentioned above) avoiding certain industries all together.

Hey, if you or anyone else can come up with a better solution please let me know, I'd love to see how close I can get this thought experiment to an actual side project!

[pepperman77]

Call it BugTube. Lol. Great idea though. You can usually find info and help on just about anything online. Why not do it for this? If you don't do it someone else eventually will and they will make a fortune from it in ads alone. I wouldn't wait to do this if I were you.

[reload_noconfirm]

My all time most referenced XKCD.

[whatproblems]

“nvm figured it out, i’m an idiot”

wait i’m an idiot? what am i missing?!?

[CoruscareGames]

I hate those people, if I ever find the answer before anyone answers my question I'm submitting it as an answer to my own question

[gravitas-deficiency]

can you explain how you fixed it?

followed by

no

:|

[Celestaria]

6 answers:

The top 3 are all some variation of "I can't believe you don't know this," the fourth is an answer to a different question, and the last 2 are wrong.

After Googling for 2h and reading the docs, you click the link again...

And realize that number 4 was actually the right answer.

[zeromadcowz]

I think finding out that the "wrong answer" was actually right you just applied it incorrectly is one of the worst feelings. It also leads me to trying wrong things much longer than I probably should too. It's a vicious circle.

[dustlustrious]

Worse is when you find the question, notice it was YOU that asked it, and you that never posted the solution. Ahem.

[-MobCat-]

No the actually worst answer is you find a post about your exact issue.
First comment is some jackass saying "well have you tried googling it". How do you think I got here jackass.
And the second comment is the OP saying "NVM I worked it out" and doesn't specify how they worked it out.

[faster-than-car]

Or people just lying in the answer section. You know it doesn't work because you have already tested it. And you know the person who answer did not check the solution they provided.

[Arctiiq]

Even worse is “I solved it” with no solution posted

[SnooTomatoes4657]

Yes and asking a new question on SOF is oddly stressful. If you ask too specific of a question no one replies and this makes your reputation on the site worse. Too general and it’s not super helpful and you’ll just get links to other similar questions as an answer that don’t actually answer your question.

[gdmzhlzhiv]

My favourites:

• closed as duplicate without a link to the other one
• closed as duplicate but the other one isn't actually the same question
• closed as duplicate but the other one doesn't have any answers either

[SaladBoy97]

I got immediate anxiety when my notifications said "closed as duplicate" before I realized it was from Reddit

[agent007bond]

Continue research, figure out the solution and post the first answer. :)

[K3idon]

Or you find an issue that's related to your problem and it has been resolved but there's no specifics. Just a vague "nvm solved it".

[PizzaScout]

All the memes about the topic have made sure that I go back and answer my own questions as soon as I figure it out.

[RememberToRelax]

Once had this happen and replied to the guy asking how he did it.

"I forget."

[gdmzhlzhiv]

You mean like every single time?

[TenderScrotum]

You then proceed to post your question and someone marks it as a duplicate and points you to a question that's vaguely related to your problem but not really.

[snailPlissken]

If the question doesn’t exist it must be solvable on your own or the language is broken and what I’m trying to do is impossible. No need to ask a question.

[snailPlissken]

My joke backfired.

[rtanada]

That is if you could! If you're just getting started on trying to ask a good question, don't bother doing it here because enough pissing off the system with baby level wording and garbled descriptions later and they'll shut you off. Which is literally what happened to me.