What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up? • Hacker News Board

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#141

Post by School-Cotton » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

geezerjay wrote: post #138

thaumasiotes wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a solution. Tags are hidden at the bottom of the answer. Accepted status and vote count are prominently highlighted. Accepted status locks the outdated answer to the top of the page regardless of whether it's valid.

> That's not a solution. Tags are hidden at the bottom of the answer. Yes, it really is. Tags are used to filter results. Stackoverflow specifically lets users run searches only on specific tags, or even exclude certain tags from the search results. As tags reflect technologies and their versions, stackoverflow enables users to run queries only on specific versions.

You're thinking about this from a power-user perspective.

99% of people use Google as the search interface to stack overflow.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#142

Post by sporkland » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

geezerjay wrote: post #134

jrochkind1 wrote: post #26

One challenge not discussed here is when an accepted and highly voted answer _used_ to be a good answer, but no longer is in later versions of whatever software/platform/library is discussed. This is also something that gets worse over time, like the uniqueness problem. I think it's worse than the uniqueness problem, multiple duplicate _good_ questions/answers don't actually harm, misguide, or delay anyone looking fo…

> One challenge not discussed here is when an accepted and highly voted answer _used_ to be a good answer, but no longer is in later versions of whatever software/platform/library is discussed. That's not a big problem. Questions and comments can be edited by other users, which includes adding and altering tags that reflect software versions.

I feel like I've been noticing that this problem on SO a lot recently, so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.

I'll often find answers to questions which are outdated and haven't been improved. I agree they have a mechanism in place to fix it, but are users actually fixing answers en masse? SO could introduce an age out mechanism that requires an answer to be maintained semi regularly? Do they already have this today?

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#143

Post by zrobotics » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

0x445442 wrote: post #39

I think the need for, or at least the level of reliance on, a site like Stack Overflow is an example of how utterly messed up the "profession" is compared to other engineering and non-engineering professions.

I don't know, software is far more dynamic than many other engineering fields. Even a first edition of The Art of Electronics is chick full of useful information, the only truly dated stuff is anything involving microcontrollers (so, software). Even the sections on digital logic ICs are still useful, they still see some use.

Software has always had the problem of information being outdated before the books even reach retailers. However, this is one of my big frustrations with SO. There are so, so many c++ questions with accepted answers that are now 'wrong' due to changes in the language. That, and the fanatical insistence to close questions that are opinion based closes off a lot of questions more experienced programmers will have.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#144

Post by raesene9 » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

geezerjay wrote: post #134

jrochkind1 wrote: post #26

One challenge not discussed here is when an accepted and highly voted answer _used_ to be a good answer, but no longer is in later versions of whatever software/platform/library is discussed. This is also something that gets worse over time, like the uniqueness problem. I think it's worse than the uniqueness problem, multiple duplicate _good_ questions/answers don't actually harm, misguide, or delay anyone looking fo…

> One challenge not discussed here is when an accepted and highly voted answer _used_ to be a good answer, but no longer is in later versions of whatever software/platform/library is discussed. That's not a big problem. Questions and comments can be edited by other users, which includes adding and altering tags that reflect software versions.

They can be but AFAIK edits don't garner the editor points, so from a gamification perspective, people might be less inclined to edit than to put a new answer with the updated information.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#145

Post by mywittyname » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #103

gaius wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that don't follow the rules (as they see them The rules are exactly what is gamified via the points and badges system. You can’t fault anyone for responding to the incentives they are given, when explicitly set out by the site owners via that system. The personalities attracted by it are the ones that made it successful, by design. Otherwise it would be just another Yahoo Answers. The “rules” only changed after those…

> You can’t fault anyone for responding to the incentives they are given, when explicitly set out by the site owners... Oh yes you can! I remember stackoverflow in the early days and it was useful from the beginning. Sure, there were always some persnickety zealots who acted as self-appointed police "protecting" the community from subjectivity and duplicate questions with all the sensitivity of a clock-maker wearing…

SO loves those "click-bait" questions. I.e., "why does this weird thing happen in C++." 99% of the time, these questions are nothing more than trivia, AND they are posted by a person who already knows the answer and is just gaming for 10k+ upvotes.

All while asking or answering a legitimate question is likely to be worth maybe 2-3 upvotes and risks getting down voted into oblivion.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#146

Post by magicbuzz » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 6:30 PM UTC

tobr wrote: post #89

Someone1234 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you still support IE11 very little has changed in the last 2-3 years. JQuery is still king. Companies that support large enterprise or government absolutely require IE11 support, since these places are required to use it due to exclusive e.g. Java Applets/Flash/ActiveX, etc. Microsoft's decision to drop those technologies from Edge was kind a mixed bag. From a security perspective it was the right decision. But it…

I find that IE11 is surprisingly polyfillable. The biggest issue has been flexbox, since CSS can’t exactly be polyfilled.

Isn’t there a Grid polyfill somewhere too?

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#147

Post by btilly » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #26

One challenge not discussed here is when an accepted and highly voted answer _used_ to be a good answer, but no longer is in later versions of whatever software/platform/library is discussed. This is also something that gets worse over time, like the uniqueness problem. I think it's worse than the uniqueness problem, multiple duplicate _good_ questions/answers don't actually harm, misguide, or delay anyone looking fo…

And this can happen surprisingly quickly.

As a cautionary example, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5021456/how-does-mongodb.... The question was why MongoDB was by default able to avoid the equivalent of SQL injection attacks. My answer took what was in their FAQ at the time, and expanded upon it based on advice from D.J. Bernstein - who is famous for his ability to write secure by default code.

Then it was discovered that PHP volunteered to create security holes in MongoDB. Then it was discovered that multiple other languages and libraries likewise volunteered to do so. Had they followed the good advice that I was quoting, the problem wouldn't have happened. Despite the other faults of MongoDB itself, in this case it was truly innocent. The security problem wasn't in it, but in the libraries that were written around it. It made it easy to write secure code and they didn't.

But the result? From the point of view of a naive programmer, not long after my answer appeared it was revealed as misleading for PHP programmers. A few years later, it was actively misleading for other languages. And while the advice remained technically correct - which is why I left it - it has been criticized on reasonable grounds by several other people since.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#148

Post by InclinedPlane » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

geezerjay wrote: post #134

jrochkind1 wrote: post #26

One challenge not discussed here is when an accepted and highly voted answer _used_ to be a good answer, but no longer is in later versions of whatever software/platform/library is discussed. This is also something that gets worse over time, like the uniqueness problem. I think it's worse than the uniqueness problem, multiple duplicate _good_ questions/answers don't actually harm, misguide, or delay anyone looking fo…

> One challenge not discussed here is when an accepted and highly voted answer _used_ to be a good answer, but no longer is in later versions of whatever software/platform/library is discussed. That's not a big problem. Questions and comments can be edited by other users, which includes adding and altering tags that reflect software versions.

Editing someone else's question or answer (comments can't be edited by others) is a very aggressive move and not something that anyone other than a handful of very experienced / high rep users are likely to do very often. And it is far from a perfect solution either.

Editing an answer substantially upsets the entire up/down vote system, as well as the comments. A better system would be something like question/answer versioning. In general it's a problem that has received far too little effort.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#149

Post by Humdeee » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 6:33 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #79

gonational wrote: post #20

I’m gonna catch some flak for this... Listening to Jeff try to describe what stack overflow is and the “fundamental misunderstanding” by all of us millions of unwashed masses is amazing. It’s also a bit like listening to a muskox describe why it decided to grow long hair after so much time in the snow; IOW, a complete and total lack of understanding of emergence and a rewriting of history at the behest of Jeff’s enor…

Before StackOverflow, this was Q&A for programmers: https://xkcd.com/979/

Or when they answer their own question simply with: "Nevermind, figured it out", and leaves it at that.

Virtually sadistic.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#150

Post by Ajedi32 » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

kauffj wrote: post #57

StackOverflow being a wiki is at substantial odds with the way answers are selected. If StackOverflow is a wiki, then the best answer to a question should be determined by the community, not the asker, and needs to be able to evolve and change over time. However, StackOverflow simultaneously insists questions can't be duplicated while making answer selection immutable and controlled by the asker. This results in a su…

Solutions to this problem have been suggested multiple times[1][2][3][4] by the community and, unfortunately, were mostly ignored.

[1]: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/326095/1157054

[2]: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/283456/1157054

[3]: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/272651/1157054

[4]: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/253752/1157054