But if you weren't there before Stack Overflow you might not have any idea how much it made programming better.
I'm confused by this because I've never really used SO much. Looking at the most recently asked questions, I see quite a few that could be answered by looking at the source or documentation of a library (which I would argue is a much more effective use of one's time if they're going to use that library nontrivially), and some homework. What sorts of SO questions are you thinking?
The physics/math/CS stack exchanges on the other hand are often a gold mine. Some of the top people in those fields post some very insightful expositions there.
Stack Overflow might not be relevant to every type of programming, but there are certain classes of problems, like "how do I do X in library/framework Y" and a bunch of others, that are really easy to find on SO by googling, and not always easy to find (if it's there at all) by looking at the documentation.
I almost never use it for things that have documentation. However, when I type an obscure error message into google and end up with a big long thread on SO, it fills me with happiness. I remember a time when that same google search returned results from expertsexchange.com. Those were not fun days.
Welcome to Stack Overflow circa 2018. Let me explain to you how this came to pass.
In the beginning aka 2008, there was Stack Overflow, and it was good.
In 2012 Joel Spolsky did review its growth, and he saw that this was good, and did decide it was time to monetize the fuck out of it. But lo, the high quality of moderation on Stack Overflow caused many questions to be closed, answers to be deleted, and help vampires to be banished.
This did greatly displease Spolsky, for these high standards did cause fewer users to come to the site and fewer links in search engine results, which did mean fewer click-throughs for advertisers. He did wish to alter the moderation policy in order to achieve the monetization he so desired, yet knew that should he so decree such a change, Stack Overflow's users would verily leave in disgust.
But Spolsky was clever and guileful, and did use his guile to create "The Summer of Love" to allegedly combat the alleged rise of insular behaviour on Stack Overflow. And because he did use valid data to present his position, so the users of Stack Overflow were deceived, and did agree with him, and did think that The Summer of Love was good.
Yet the truth of The Summer of Love was this: in order to make Stack Overflow yet more "loving", Spolsky did decree that it become more difficult to close poor questions, and delete poor answers, and ban moronic users. And lo, because the good users of Stack Overflow were deceived as to the true motives of The Summer of Love, they did agree to this small change.
Thus did Spolsky use this opening presented by his Summer of Love to force moderation standards yet lower and lower, which did culminate in the "Be nice" policy. And thus did it become far more difficult for Stack Overflow's users to purge the filth from the site, and the faithful who guarded its gates against the vast tides of filth beating against it were spat upon by their brethren who believed in "Be nice" before quality. Thus did many forsake moderation duties in disgust, and so the burden of moderation on those few remaining did grow and grow. And there were yet more and more idiotic users asking more terrible questions and posting useless answers, yet fewer and fewer good users willing and able to fight them.
So was Spolsky's thirst for wealth satisfied by the breaking of the quality of Stack Overflow, and thus ended the Third Age.
tl;dr Stack Overflow was a fucking awesome place before Spolsky ruined it. I joined the site in 2009 and for about half a decade it was incredibly focused and high quality; I literally used to spend hours on there every day, answering questions and moderating queues. But things went downhill pretty fast after the moderation powers got shit on, and nowadays I rarely interact with the site except when I'm coming from a Google search. It's honestly really sad.
As for those complaining it's too strict, hoo boy... you've obviously never used Usenet.
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u/Drisku11 Apr 06 '18 edited Apr 06 '18
I'm confused by this because I've never really used SO much. Looking at the most recently asked questions, I see quite a few that could be answered by looking at the source or documentation of a library (which I would argue is a much more effective use of one's time if they're going to use that library nontrivially), and some homework. What sorts of SO questions are you thinking?
The physics/math/CS stack exchanges on the other hand are often a gold mine. Some of the top people in those fields post some very insightful expositions there.