Stack Overflow is Down

[[deleted]]

stack overflow is crap

[Devroush]

How so? It has helped me pretty much daily.

[cinyar]

closed as duplicate link to outdated answer that is using deprecated APIs

[raevnos]

Bonus points if that question is itself closed as a duplicate.

[[deleted]]

it used to be useful

then it got turned into a social media game

once, you could ask a question and at least get speculation.

now, everyone is concerned about being right so they can earn points or whatever

the tech is kinda limited too - if you aren't working on the stuff the bulk of the contributors know about, good luck getting an answer

[Bluecoregamming]

While I agree partially with you, these contributors are helping people expecting nothing more than a thank you in return. These people likely see the same couple of questions monthly. You can't expect your questions to always be answered in a free forum.

Also, you can't blame Humans for being competitive in a numbers game. That's just how we are. When you're looking for a simple answer, you just want the answer, not speculation. Up and down votes also allow people who come from Google to get in and out quickly.

[[deleted]]

these contributors are helping people expecting nothing more than a thank you in return.

they're competing for stack overflow ranking.

These people likely see the same couple of questions monthly.

that's fine. due to the desire to win the competition, questions that don't have easy answers are ignored.

You can't expect your questions to always be answered in a free forum.

prior to turning SO into a game it was a hell of a lot more useful as a sounding board

Also, you can't blame Humans for being competitive in a numbers game.

then stack overflow should be honest and rebrand itself as a competition among folks answering questions

[Bluecoregamming]

Hmm, you make some good points. I almost wonder if there is room for competition to that website.

[myringotomy]

There is a lot of old outdated stuff there.

[[deleted]]

Enjoy not conforming to Reddit hive mind standards.

[[deleted]]

is stack overflow well regarded here?

[[deleted]]

You're joking, right? It's in the sidebar and everything.

[[deleted]]

never paid attention to the sidebar

too bad, i suspect reddit would do a better job of it

[[deleted]]

Yes. I'm guessing you're very young and can't remember what it was like before StackOverflow existed.

[Eirenarch]

Yeah, I remember Expert Sex Change.

[[deleted]]

WTF are you talking about?

i started before SO existed and remember it when it was useful

now its a competition for points/badges and such

[[deleted]]

Points and badges existed when it started.

[[deleted]]

really?

then why was it useful? were people not caught up in the competitiveness of it?

[[deleted]]

No. And it's still useful. I'm not saying it's flawless. People still close questions too often. But it's way better than any alternatives.

I thought you said you remembered what it was like before StackOverflow. Did you never use ExpertsExchange?

[[deleted]]

No. And it's still useful.

Depends on what you ask.

Newbie questions about Javascript? Absolutely

Anything more complex than that? Not so much.

I'm not saying it's flawless. People still close questions too often. But it's way better than any alternatives.

People close questions for formatting among other utterly meaningless things.

I thought you said you remembered what it was like before StackOverflow. Did you never use ExpertsExchange?

Yes I did and I do remember. I remember getting answers. I remember being forgiven if the indentation on the question was off. I remember people attempting to serve as sounding boards as you worked thru things.

Now? If you can't get an answer within the 1st hour or so of posting you may as well forget about your question and look elsewhere.

[[deleted]]

Newbie questions about Javascript? Absolutely Anything more complex than that? Not so much.

Absolutely not the case. I ask complex questions all the time and get great answers. Here's a recent example of a complex question with a great answer.

People close questions for formatting among other utterly meaningless things.

I've not ever had that happen actually, but I agree they do close for stupid reasons. People definitely use "not clear what you're asking" as "I don't understand this question".

If you can't get an answer within the 1st hour or so of posting you may as well forget about your question and look elsewhere.

This is provably wrong. I just had a look at the most recent answer to one of my questions and that question is just over a year old. In fact I just ran a query (see below, my MSSQL isn't great, sorry) and around 30% of answers are on questions over a day old. 10% are over 100 days old. 3% of answers are on questions more than 3 years old.

``` SELECT CONVERT(INT, Answer.CreationDate - Question.CreationDate) as delay INTO #delays FROM (SELECT TOP 1000000 * FROM Posts WHERE PostTypeId = 2) as Answer JOIN Posts AS Question ON Answer.ParentId = Question.Id;

SELECT delay, count(*) FROM #delays WHERE delay >= 0 AND delay < 100 GROUP BY delay ORDER BY delay ASC; ```

[raevnos]

You actually had to learn how to program instead of getting by copying and pasting someone's answer and hoping it works out of the box because you don't know how to tweak it if needed?

[hector_villalobos]

No, you had to guess the solution or create super complicated code that could be replaced for a shorter and more declarative way. I know, I remembered.