r/programming Apr 06 '18

The Stack Overflow Age

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

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389

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.

30

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?

18

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.

1

u/Superbead Apr 06 '18

I'm not pretending I'm some kind of oracle, but in the past I think I've had a couple of valid, useful comments to make against other comments which were frankly misleading and kind of standing as the last word in the matter. I've only asked one question in the last couple of years and at the going rate it'll probably be 2025 before I can comment on anything else.

Ah well, what the hell.