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Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

jlericson.com

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Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#231

Post by ben_w »

Shawnj2 wrote: post #216
ben_w wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their median user is a junior dev who really just needs to serialize a Java object and isn’t going to pay or put up with any LLM-generated nonsense. (Un?)Ironically, one of my main uses of ChatGPT is to replace StackOverflow (it's great at turning vague guesses about what I want into fast ideas, and when it's wrong it's still less wrong than the combination of SO content and the search engines connected to it); and…

Honestly LLM generated and moderator edited/vetted answers would make SO vastly more useful

Looks like the CEO agrees with you, which is a nice thing to be able to say given all the cynicism everyone seems to have of late: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36892057

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#232

Post by JimDabell »

teh_klev wrote: post #230
scarface_74 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in cloud consulting and I had a project where I needed to create a CI/CD proof of concept for the customer to use that involved deploying a Docker container to ECS (AWS’s Docker orchestrator) and show how they could integrate automated testing with the pipeline. They use Java - a language I literally haven’t used since maybe a year after it was introduced. I used ChatGPT to create the source code for the sampl…

> But it was still faster than trolling the internet. I'm guessing you mean trawling the internet rather than trying to upset and annoy the internet:)

No, “trolling” is actually correct. It’s less widely used than the meaning you refer to these days though.

> the act of searching among a large number or many different places in order to find people or information you want

> It takes me 45 minutes of trolling on the internet and I’m still confused.

— https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/trolling

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#233

Post by dwaltrip »

mcv wrote: post #50
hathchip wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're giving them money, for your own reasons, when it's well established that they don't need your donations for their core mission. They spend it on things other than their core mission. Isn't this just a problem which you have created yourself? Just stop giving them money, give it to some other project which is also doing something valuable but which needs it more. If it ever turns out the Wikipedia needs your mo…

Wikimedia is swimming in money. Give to the Internet Archive instead. They really need it.

Your post just got me to finally donate to internet archive!

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#234

Post by jlericson »

bambax wrote: post #46

> It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it! — Upton Sinclair Slightly OT, but it's counter-productive to start a blog / an article with a well known quote that's been used and re-used ad nauseam. It makes the reader suspicious that they're not going to read something truly original, and tells them the author may have a thing for authority. I think it's…

Author here and I agree actually. The quote was the first thing I wrote and I never went back to consider if it still made sense for the post as a whole. Given the title (which is maybe more combative than I intended?) I don't think I need it. I'm planning on watching the CEO's announcement today and updating the post. Unless there's a better use for the quote, it'll be gone in the next edit. Thanks for the feedback!

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#235

Post by mrguyorama »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #200
agentgumshoe wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you got a source for that? But your point is valid, life expectancy is not the same as quality of life. I'd personally rather live five years less and be in great general health than be slogging through pain and medical bingo for my last 10 years.

Sources of high life expectancy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe... Source of 12 minute arrival policy of ambulance: https://www.hkfsd.gov.hk/eng/aboutus/performance.html

Where is the source that says one is caused by the other

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#236

Post by mrguyorama »

raincole wrote: post #214
refurb wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the extra money come from? Out of thin air?

GDP isn't money. It's production. There is an assumption behind GDP: people generally pay production for a fair amount of money. The more untrue this assumption is, the less meaningful GDP is.

It's not even production because of that assumption. It's "sum of prices paid" basically

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#237

Post by throw_m239339 »

janalsncm wrote: post #3

> In May I wrote about Stack Overflow's business, which lost $42 million over 6 months and had just laid off 10% of its employees. Since then, the company's fiscal year-end results came out. Despite growing revenue, it lost $84 million over the year ending on March 31, 2023. Thank god Wikipedia isn’t run like Stack Overflow. As an end user, they have pretty much the same value proposition: user generated answers to m…

> Thank god Wikipedia isn’t run like Stack Overflow.

Wikipedia isn't run like a business, but relies on charity. Wikipedia doesn't have to be profitable to exist so of course it isn't run like Stack Overflow, Wikipedia is backed by a foundation that gets plenty of donations. Maybe SO should adopt that model, but that's an entire different question.

If Wikipedia had to be profitable it would be a very different platform.

Both are crowdsourced (so are reddit, facebook and youtube), and the similarities stop there.

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#238

Post by theironhammer »

camillomiller wrote: post #161
jncfhnb wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well… it’s not maximizing the length of life? I would not cite this as a success story. Europe does not seem to be heading in a good direction imo. The consequences are largely unrealized. Even pretending the war never happened and they continued slurping Russian gas.

Please be informed before commenting. Europe has undergone the hardest and most painful decoupling from Russian gas for quite a while. As of 2022 no gas in Europe is imported from Russia.

It's essentially killed the German economy. It's all by design. The Americans don't want Germany and Russia teaming up to be a Regional Hegemon of Eurasia.

Also now America can supply Germany with Gas.

Is all by design. American Hegemony.

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#239

Post by malfist »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #155
rahidz wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this so common with tech companies? I'm not an economist by any means, but I never hear of McDonald's, Honda, Home Depot, etc. etc. pulling these kinds of stunts. They're perfectly happy being large companies that pull a constant year-over-year profit. Meanwhile tech companies seem to deliberately have a lifespan of years, not decades, with rugpulls like this being accepted as the norm.

>Why is this so common with tech companies? Venture capital.

Vulture captial

Re: Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow

#240

Post by mrguyorama »

sgarland wrote: post #126
mrweasel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not everything needs to be a damn unicorn. More people needs to understand this. It's fine being a small(ish) business that turns a profit and provides a service that's beneficial to society. You don't need to be a billion dollar company to be important or do great work. DHH talked about this 15 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

God, I wish more companies realized this. Doing one thing, and doing it well, is admirable.

But how can I build a company to send rich people to space for dick measuring contests with only $1m a year in salary?!
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