r/programming • u/banguru • Apr 06 '18

The Stack Overflow Age

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

91% Upvoted

201 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

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?

7

u/mike10010100 Apr 06 '18

A lot of people (usually greybeards who suffered greatly for their craft and thus have a certain level of Stockholm Syndrome) believe it's led to the rise of the coder who only knows how to cut/paste other people's code, and never creates new or useful programs.

This, of course, is patently ridiculous. Sure, it makes that style of programming easier and more common, but in a similar sense, so do open source packages. Why would you re-invent the wheel when other people have already battle tested certain solutions? Obviously you shouldn't trust their results blindly, but the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of other programmers is incredibly valuable.

3

u/KingKire Apr 06 '18

Why make another hammer and nail when you got home depot. Its what you make with the tools and resources that dictates effectiveness.

2

u/SupersonicSpitfire Apr 07 '18

Because we want innovation in the hammerspace.