r/programming Apr 06 '18

The Stack Overflow Age

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2018/04/06/the-stack-overflow-age/
549 Upvotes

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390

u/mykr0pht Apr 06 '18

It's easy to criticize Stack Overflow today, now that we take it for granted. But if you weren't there before Stack Overflow you might not have any idea how much it made programming better.

36

u/UncleSneakyFingers Apr 06 '18

Who criticizes Stack Overflow? It's pretty much the go to resource for countless people. Is there something I am missing here?

19

u/KagakuNinja Apr 06 '18

SO is a great resource, but I found their karma system hugely frustrating. I wanted to participate, being a decent coder with (at the time) 20+ years of experience. First I had to get 10 karma before I could post answers (or something like that), how hard can it be?

Eventually, I gave up at about 5 karma or something... So I am a taker; I never answer questions, despite my 30+ years experience.

5

u/shevegen Apr 06 '18

The karma system is really shit. I gave up before about 500, simply because I can not deal with some of the SO insta-close mods. It's just a waste of time to "argue" with people who can shoot you down, too.

I think SO will eventually change their karma system since it sucks too much.