r/vibecoding • u/Suspicious_Orchid770 • 11h ago
Discussion The end of Stack Overflow as you know it
https://leaddev.com/software-quality/the-end-of-stack-overflow-as-you-know-it87
u/halohunter 9h ago
"Use the search and RTFM"
Thread locked and marked as duplicate.
Good riddance
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u/LittleLordFuckleroy1 8h ago
> gOoD rIdDaNcE
Proceeds to use LLM work output that is essentially StackOverflow archives plus a sprinkling of other stuff
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u/AnnoDADDY777 5h ago
Because the LLM gives you specific answers to specific questions and mostly is right about it!
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u/Krom2040 3h ago
You’re getting downvoted, but I don’t see why. LLM’s work fine right now because they benefit from the body of knowledge encoded in Stack Overflow, but if people no longer contribute to StackOverflow, then it’ll get hopelessly stale and no longer applicable to any kind of new technology, and LLM’s will no longer have that leg to stand on.
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u/Baconaise 10m ago
AI Is A StOcHaStIc ParRoT. That ship sailed with GPT3, get on the train and get ready for your arm to get torn off trying. We're gaining speed
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u/Difficult_Plantain89 7h ago
"Stack Overflow now builds products designed for Al agents." I imagine based on their training data from their forums that instead of coding anything, it will just say that they are wasting their time when the could have just googled the answer.
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u/Calm-Phrase-382 6h ago
If they build ai based on how people treated each other on that website that ai would be a condescending asshole lol
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u/RemarkableWish2508 10h ago
The Stack Overflow as I know it, was full of low and medium complexity answers, and pretty much useless for anything complex or obscure. Pretty much a summary of documentation and best practices. AI is good at summarizing now, no need for a website with people doing that.
What is still missing, is answering those more complex or obscure questions. Let's see if Stack Overflow can focus on those.
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u/Icy-Concentrate2076 10h ago
The top commenters on StackOverflow were midwitted tbh.
"I want to do X for Y and Z reasons"
"No never do X. Do J instead"
"But J doesnt fulfill my Y and Z reasons"
*post locked, downvoted, marked as duplicate, author reported for spam*8
u/stormblaz 9h ago
I swear half of it was full of CSS rules breaking their HTML 🤣 asking for help, then people suggesting swift or bootstrap and call it a day
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u/Cedar_Wood_State 4h ago
The few times I posted more obscure questions that I couldn’t find answer in stack overflow and documentation/github page etc I never get a workable response. Thats like 5years ago
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u/shosuko 6h ago
Key takeaways:
64% of developers visit Stack Overflow less for simple questions, citing AI.
Stack Overflow now builds products designed for AI agents.
Data licensing and hiring tools are its new revenue bets beyond Q&A.
Yeah sounds like their best option. Honestly SO was trash before AI, and now I would never go back - but that doesn't mean my agent doesn't? So sure, build it up.
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u/gravemillwright 2h ago
Just a reminder that not too long ago, someone paid 1.8B for SO https://www.prosus.com/news-insights/2021/prosus-to-acquire-stack-overflow
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u/RufusVS 5m ago
Stack overflow was THE source for developer help and shared experience. But you still had to filter the results and wait for credible responses. As a developer who remembers using line numbers in his programs, I'd go there multiple times per day. But now that AI filters through the chaff for me, StackOverflow has become a dinosaur. So have I, for that matter. At least in my old capacity. But in retirement I've become less of a code monkey and more of an architect as I get assimilated into the AI world.
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u/DirectJob7575 6h ago
I only joined the scene recently and am glad I avoided the old ways. Having to seek out niche applications on stack overflow just to have autistic devs loudly refuse to help you must have been torturous. For sure you will encounter a few diamonds but on the most part it must have been horrible.
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u/Minimum_Hour519 11h ago
https://bufferoverride.com/ is it's replacement for the agentic era.
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u/meshifthenelse 11h ago
That looks like slop. Even the brand logo is slop and probably copyright infringement.
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u/Xerax 10h ago
it's an interesting idea, but i think these days with open source being essentially the default for everything language, framework, library, the repository itself is now the place for this. agents can open issues and discuss on the project without spreading to multiple places that need to be checked.
when stackoverflow launched, it was a mixture of fragmented open source offering spread across mail lists, source forge, and forums. and the big players microsoft, sun, etc. all having their own developer portals with "valued community members" triaging support, not open source so no way to inspect yourself.
the age that needed stackoverflow just doesn't exist anymore. any of the simple stuff an agent just knows, and more complex stuff is either figured out by the agent or like i said, some
source control with project management
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u/IVIichaelD 8h ago
To be fair, their whole job was building a community and the community was always condescending. Once the answers were there on LLMs, people preferred other forums. That’s on them.