Stack Overflow's CEO Doesn't Understand Stack Overflow • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 4:55 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #24

ygra wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any question could easily include a Reddit-style discussion tab to facilitate discussion. This exists in the form of chat, and extended comment discussions migrate there. That being said, any question that requires extensive discussion is likely not a very good fit for SO because it's probably ambiguous, unclear or otherwise hard to answer exactly.

> That being said, any question that requires extensive discussion is likely not a very good fit for SO because it's probably ambiguous, unclear or otherwise hard to answer exactly. So basically SO isn't a tool to improve your skills but one to turn you into a copy/paste monkey?

Stated a little more politely, that was its original purpose, yes.

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

#242

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

throwawaymobule wrote: post #184

Qem wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thank god Wikimedia isn’t run like Stack Overflow. I wonder why didn't Wikimedia have a stackoverflow-like site before stackoverflow.

There's a lot of nuance to how SO and other sites they run work. Turning programmer focused FAQs into a collaborative site was the route it kind of had to take. Reading through the joelonsoftware blog was kind of eyeopening, since I didn't know he was one of its creators.

> I didn't know he was one of its creators

This comment just made me feel old :-)

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

#243

Post by camillomiller » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 5:02 PM UTC

theironhammer wrote: post #238

camillomiller wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It has not. Germany is in technical recession, but people are not dying in the streets, have jobs, and can take care of their families. In the US the economy is stellar, yet homelessness is peaking, with people unable to afford housing even if they have a job. Stop calling it “the economy” as if it was a direct translation of the reality of a society. It’s not. Signed: a business journalist.

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

#244

Post by scarface_74 » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

JimDabell wrote: post #232

teh_klev wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Today I learned: while trawling is probably the word I should have used, I was unintentionally correct either way…

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

#245

Post by Tarsul » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

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.

I'm with you in argument. Nonetheless, Europe still imports 9% of its gas from Russia: https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/erdgas-versorgung-europas-...

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

#246

Post by jstarfish » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #70

raincole wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of my main uses of ChatGPT is to replace StackOverflow I'm pretty sure it's the main usage of almost all the programmers who use ChatGPT.

That and translating short messages into neurotypical-appropriate management-impressing emails, lol. Example, the message "tl;dr": Dear [Recipient's Name], I trust this email finds you well. I am writing to express my appreciation for the time and effort you invested in composing the recent email you sent my way. Your commitment to clear communication is commendable, and I value the insights you often bring to our ex…

Ok, that's hilarious :) so many words that say absolutely nothing.

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

#247

Post by paulmd » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

endofreach wrote: post #196

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…

Now that you write about the median user being a junior with trivial needs, i realize, i barely visit SO anymore. Not sure when that happened. I used to be a power-consumer on SO. I don‘t think i have even visited SO this year at all. I did use GPT4 for a lot of the minor things that i am too lazy to remember and would have „relearned“ on SO every time… maybe others have a similar experience and management just sees…

> Now that you write about the median user being a junior with trivial needs, i realize, i barely visit SO anymore. Not sure when that happened. I used to be a power-consumer on SO. I don‘t think i have even visited SO this year at all.

Google algorithm changes have absolutely curbstomped SO visibility, probably due to third-party sites mirroring their content and making it appear to be a linkfarm to google.

It's funny how even as tech users, google is "the internet" and if something disappears off google, it's gone. Even just pushing a site down a ways in results will massively reduce the amount of traffic, even for us technical users.

There have been a lot of "monkeypatches" from users working around it, like adding "reddit" or site:reddit.com or other hints, but fundamentally google result quality has been significantly declining for 10+ years now and it's getting to the point where it no longer surfaces desirable content anymore.

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

#248

Post by fndex » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

bloopernova wrote: post #208

awb wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were the semi benevolent dictator of the world, I'd make a law that said: all middle managers up to the CEO must spend 20% of their time doing entry level work in the company. Maybe try this rule in your own company first. If it’s an improvement over the current system you’ll have a competitive advantage. If it doesn’t work, then you wouldn’t have been benevolent. > the richest people are the furthest out of t…

I like both those ideas! Especially the 2nd one. Linking CEO compensation to FTE pay feels like a good way to remind the powerful that their power derives from the consent of their employees. Plus I'm very against the massive inequality that has skyrocketed in the past few decades. I just wish there was a way to get the powerful to understand that it's not a one way relationship. The 2 parts, FTEs and executives, bot…

> I just wish there was a way to get the powerful to understand that it's not a one way relationship

I guarantee you, they do understand that. This is not a matter of changing individuals by teaching them and "getting them to understand". The system as a whole must be changed. The mechanisms that allow those people to exist in the first place must be destroyed.

FTEs rely on executives on the current system, but it doesn't have to be that way. The opposite is not true, tho. There are no executives without workers.

As Abraham Lincoln once said:

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

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

#249

Post by toyg » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

bunga-bunga wrote: post #113

chmod775 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm surprised that a company whose core product could be run by three people for less than a million USD per year with room to spare for lavish company cars, somehow manages to lose $84 million USD.

This is a “Dropbox is just a pretty rsync”-level comment

Atwood and Spolsky themselves boasted repeatedly that SO, for a long time, was just a Windows server and a SQL Server with some C#.

The key element in the success of SO was not technical: it was Spolsky and Atwood leveraging already-established (Microsoft) audiences they had, to create a virtuous circle of sharing that snowballed for years.

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

#250

Post by tracker1 » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

playingalong wrote: post #218

ygra wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any question could easily include a Reddit-style discussion tab to facilitate discussion. This exists in the form of chat, and extended comment discussions migrate there. That being said, any question that requires extensive discussion is likely not a very good fit for SO because it's probably ambiguous, unclear or otherwise hard to answer exactly.

20K+ karma in SO. I have never used SO chat. I don't come to SO to socialize. To me chat means socializing.

I'm in a similar point... though tbh, most of my points are just entropy from being fairly active early on. I don't use SO chat either... if I want/need something closer to chat, I'm more inclined to join various dev channels in IRC/Libra.