Dear StackExchange: Thank You • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#61

Post by Jimmie » Sun, May 13, 2012, 8:35 AM UTC

reidmain wrote: post #31

StackOverflow is a watershed website. There are very few websites I can go without and StackOverflow is, without a doubt, one of them. It is difficult to remember the dark ages where every question I typed into Google would link to Expert Exchange and it was a coin flip on whether you'd find your answer. Very much like GitHub was the tipping point for social coding, StackOverflow was the tipping point for social prob…

Do you mean "can't go without"?

Except for your second sentence you are praising StackOverflow.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#62

Post by d0mine » Sun, May 13, 2012, 10:42 AM UTC

crumblan wrote: post #58

4ad wrote: post #9

No thanks from me. The no discussions rule means the only questions on the site are the trivial questions that could be answered by reading some documentation. If questions are broad or open ended, the value lies in the discussion, not in any particular answer. I also found that many accepted answers are blatantly wrong, or encourage very poor practice. Sure, the StackExchange network is better than experts-exchange…

Once you are asking questions beyond a certain level at SO it is impossible to get a correct answer; instead you will get conjectures from people who don't know what they are doing.

I saw authors, maintainers of some projects answer questions related to their projects on SO.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#63

Post by philipbjorge » Sun, May 13, 2012, 11:39 AM UTC

I received a portfolio from stackoverflow careers yesterday!

I'm a college student and was in dire need of a portfolio for future interviews (the SO logo on the front is an awesome touch). The surprise package made my day.

http://twitpic.com/9kjx03

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#64

Post by gbog » Sun, May 13, 2012, 12:10 PM UTC

codinghorror wrote: post #28

4ad wrote: post #9

No thanks from me. The no discussions rule means the only questions on the site are the trivial questions that could be answered by reading some documentation. If questions are broad or open ended, the value lies in the discussion, not in any particular answer. I also found that many accepted answers are blatantly wrong, or encourage very poor practice. Sure, the StackExchange network is better than experts-exchange…

Discussion is only tolerated insofar as it allows refinement (and editing for improvement) of the question and the answers. Discussion in and of itself is not the goal; getting a verifiably great answer to your question -- even if you didn't ask it -- is! At Stack Exchange, we do science in the small. Bite-size, fun-size units of science that shouldn't feel like work, but collectively build something amazing for a co…

Science in the small is an oxymoron, I guess. Any scientific issue start with a good question that has no straightforward answer.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#65

Post by DanWaterworth » Sun, May 13, 2012, 1:11 PM UTC

Hand signing, the real-world equivalent of proof of work.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#66

Post by srik » Sun, May 13, 2012, 1:11 PM UTC

babarock wrote: post #6

I can definitely relate with the feeling described. I too got the "prize" from Unix&Linux.SE. The hand signed letter by Spolsky definitely had a strong effect. I felt proud like a child receiving a gold star in kindergarden. A piece of advice for all the startup/business founders here on HN. When you send personalized communication to your users, be it a personal email, or something as superficial as putting your han…

How did they go about doing this. Did they send you an email saying they needed your address in order to mail you a letter or did they already have your address? If they did send a request, it must have taken away the surprise factor a little bit.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#67

Post by FuzzyDunlop » Sun, May 13, 2012, 2:26 PM UTC

ZanderEarth32 wrote: post #32

I seriously doubt I would have had as much progress with trying my hand at programming if it hadn't been for the SE community. Very helpful.

I found it particularly valuable for iOS development. Even if it didn't solve my problem straight away, it pointed me in the right direction.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#68

Post by shurane » Sun, May 13, 2012, 5:30 PM UTC

bp_ wrote: post #51

simonsarris wrote: post #27

I participate in the SO community a lot (I'm top answer-er for the Canvas tag and HTML5 tag). It's not quite a "community", though, because while I have a lot of respect for the other answer-ers I don't really get to interact with them very much, aside from complimenting a novel solution and the like. I sort of wish there were more methods for interaction (the chat channels don't help that much for niche tags). And w…

The problem is mainly that chat.SO sucks in a lot of ways and probably should be reduced to a single room where all SO regulars who have time to chat do chat - together. That's the way pretty much all other sites do chat (including MSO) and it's... saner. I just don't know how much it'd scale.

That doesn't work for interest-specific communities. HTML5-ers, Java-ers, and haskell-ers will probably not talk about the same topics with each other as they would with other people that share their interests, as in their own interest-specific community.

Isn't that why on freenode, you have communities based around particular langauges? #java, #haskell, #html5, etc. etc? Not to mention social versions, like #haskell-blah and what have you.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#69

Post by reidmain » Sun, May 13, 2012, 8:10 PM UTC

Jimmie wrote: post #61

reidmain wrote: post #31

StackOverflow is a watershed website. There are very few websites I can go without and StackOverflow is, without a doubt, one of them. It is difficult to remember the dark ages where every question I typed into Google would link to Expert Exchange and it was a coin flip on whether you'd find your answer. Very much like GitHub was the tipping point for social coding, StackOverflow was the tipping point for social prob…

Do you mean "can't go without"? Except for your second sentence you are praising StackOverflow.

Yup you are correct Jimmie. Unfortunate that I cannot go back and edit it.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#70

Post by georgemcbay » Sun, May 13, 2012, 10:11 PM UTC

ashovlin wrote: post #54

babarock wrote: post #6

I can definitely relate with the feeling described. I too got the "prize" from Unix&Linux.SE. The hand signed letter by Spolsky definitely had a strong effect. I felt proud like a child receiving a gold star in kindergarden. A piece of advice for all the startup/business founders here on HN. When you send personalized communication to your users, be it a personal email, or something as superficial as putting your han…

The same goes for recruiting. I'm a student at Penn State which is a ranked CS school, but not necessarily Stanford or MIT. I noticed a stack of Fog Creek recruiting pamphlets in the lobby to our CS building. Inside each one was a signed letter from Joel. Students are inundated with literature at career fairs and events, but this was the only one I read entirely and then saved.

Based on various stories that popped up due to this blog post I'm starting to suspect either Joel has an Autopen or an intern that does nothing but sign his name on things.

Could he really be signing letters sent out in "stacks"? One would assume that many more schools than just Penn State got such stacks. And then on top of that he's sending out hundreds of these hand-signed letters to top members of all the different new SE sites?

Even if he isn't really signing each personally, there's still a good message here, but I'm now curious as to whether or not he's really signing all that stuff.