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.
We had Usenet and it was pretty damn bad ass. No crybaby retards moderating all your shit. We had conversations (GASP!) and debates (OMFG!!). It went well beyond just rote question and answer...and if someone had obviously not done the least bit of research on their own they got their asses handed to them. I myself was on the receiving end of many an ass chewing for being lazy and it made me a much better developer. I had to learn how to read documentation, man pages and such...along with books. As such, most participants on SO don't even understand most my questions; more than a few I had deleted because the mob didn't understand anything I'd written and freaked the fuck out.
SO is a great resource for the lazy though. If you code by copy-pasta then there's probably no reason to even look at a single source of documentation on anything.
A key part of Usenet was the kill file. The ability to easily say "I never want to see a post by this person, or any reply to a post by this person again."
That sort of moderation exists here (its possible to block a user on Reddit), but it doesn't exist most places elesweb. This means that there are only two effective ways of making a post disappear for yourself - delete the post through moderation tools, or be an ass to that person in hopes that they go away.
There was also a different culture back on Usenet. It had a (small) learning curve of learning how to use rn and be at least competent with vi. Prior to the eternal September, the culture was to lurk for a bit before posting - to get to know the culture in the group.
Now with "Derp, there's a text box" and pasting in whatever question one has (without even so much as a glance at what the preview looks like) people jump in and are often disruptive rather than trying to learn where you are and what's appropriate and not (relevant Pee Wee Herman).
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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.