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Has StackOverflow saved billions of dollars in programmer productivity?

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Re: Has StackOverflow saved billions of dollars in programmer productivity?

#61

Post by laurent123456 »

kaffeinecoma wrote: post #53

I'm still waiting for someone to coin a term for when you google around for a problem and end up at your OWN answer on SO from a year or so earlier. This happens more often than I'd like to admit. I'm incredibly thankful for the many, many hours that SO has saved me personally.

Actually, if your question is about an obscure enough topic, you'll get your own question within seconds on Google. It's a kind of loop - search on Google desperately without finding anything; turn to SO and ask a question. Since probably nobody will answer soon, in the meantime search more on Google... and you find your own question on top (and feel just a bit more desperate).

Re: Has StackOverflow saved billions of dollars in programmer productivity?

#62

Post by ateevchopra »

I guess the best thing about stack overflow is how helpful the community is. They will help you with anything and even virtually shout on you if required. I guess it has made me the programmer that I am today. But I still have a journey ahead of me and that isn't gonna be without stack overflow.

I remember when I was using stack overflow for the first time, I asked a really silly question, and got my answer within 1 minute. I thanked that person for helping me with such a simple question, but his reply changed my thinking about the communities and why they help each other.

He just said : "no probs, someone did that for me too".

Re: Has StackOverflow saved billions of dollars in programmer productivity?

#63

Post by GalacticDomin8r »

baddox wrote: post #32
forgotAgain wrote: post #3

A lot of time has been spent by developers trying to get points. There is a cost to that. The site has enabled software vendors to slack off on their documentation. If there was no StackOverflow the vendors would have to do better. I'm thinking of msdn as an example since a lot of the Stack questions are MS technology based. MS is far from alone though. Much of the money saved has gone to vendors. Even given those po…

> Much of the money saved has gone to vendors. That's not a contradiction to the claim that wealth has been created. Of course it has to go somewhere.

> That's not a contradiction to the claim that wealth has been created.

There was no claim wealth was created.

Re: Has StackOverflow saved billions of dollars in programmer productivity?

#64

Post by rrich »

duaneb wrote: post #47
dccoolgai wrote: post #2

I know it's fashionable in certain circles to rag on it lately, but I'm not too big to admit it has saved me a lot of time here and there over the last 4-5 years. I would bet a lot of devs use it more than they would admit to check down on things throughout the course of any given project. Billions seems like a lot, but I wouldn't call BS on it out of hand.

What on earth is bad about using StackOverflow? You're expected to google around to find solutions anyway, if anything I would think much less of the programmer who tried to avoid it. It's stupid pride when it's such a valuable resource.

I agree with you, but several people I have encountered don't feel this way. For instance I had someone try to explain how using HAML made their developers more valuable because of all the keystrokes they were saving. When you're counting keystrokes as a developer productivity metric I can only wonder how toxic the work environment becomes when you need to stop to look at documentation yet alone use Google or SO.

Re: Has StackOverflow saved billions of dollars in programmer productivity?

#65

Post by bottled_poe »

taspeotis wrote: post #11
forgotAgain wrote: post #3

A lot of time has been spent by developers trying to get points. There is a cost to that. The site has enabled software vendors to slack off on their documentation. If there was no StackOverflow the vendors would have to do better. I'm thinking of msdn as an example since a lot of the Stack questions are MS technology based. MS is far from alone though. Much of the money saved has gone to vendors. Even given those po…

The site has enabled software vendors to slack off on their documentation ... I'm thinking of msdn as an example The number of questions on SO that can be answered by RTFM is quite remarkable. I think that points to a lot of the documentation being just fine. The last bug of my own I spent any significant of time on was answerable by RTFM [1]. There are plenty of PHP+MySQL questions that appear where the OP is clearl…

You are quite right. All of the information is in the manual, and if only everyone would spend their time reading the manual there wouldn't be so many questions on SO. However, the volume of information in most manuals is also the problem. If everyone read the whole manual, a lot of time would be collectively wasted because most of the information is not useful or relevant to what each individual developer is trying to do. In my opinion manuals should be written in several tiers of detail. Admittedly, a lot of software developers already publish documentation this way and these basic questions still get submitted to SO.

Re: Has StackOverflow saved billions of dollars in programmer productivity?

#66

Post by chavesn »

taspeotis wrote: post #11
forgotAgain wrote: post #3

A lot of time has been spent by developers trying to get points. There is a cost to that. The site has enabled software vendors to slack off on their documentation. If there was no StackOverflow the vendors would have to do better. I'm thinking of msdn as an example since a lot of the Stack questions are MS technology based. MS is far from alone though. Much of the money saved has gone to vendors. Even given those po…

The site has enabled software vendors to slack off on their documentation ... I'm thinking of msdn as an example The number of questions on SO that can be answered by RTFM is quite remarkable. I think that points to a lot of the documentation being just fine. The last bug of my own I spent any significant of time on was answerable by RTFM [1]. There are plenty of PHP+MySQL questions that appear where the OP is clearl…

Why do people assume that RTFM does not have a cost?

In fact, it's probably higher than searching SO through Google. This is why I'm hugely in favor of even basic questions getting answers on SO.

Re: Has StackOverflow saved billions of dollars in programmer productivity?

#67

Post by baddox »

GalacticDomin8r wrote: post #63
baddox wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much of the money saved has gone to vendors. That's not a contradiction to the claim that wealth has been created. Of course it has to go somewhere.

> That's not a contradiction to the claim that wealth has been created. There was no claim wealth was created.

There certainly was.

"SO has probably added billions of dollars of value to the world in increased programmer productivity."

https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/380018564792455168

Re: Has StackOverflow saved billions of dollars in programmer productivity?

#68

Post by chavesn »

john2x wrote: post #52
forgotAgain wrote: post #3

A lot of time has been spent by developers trying to get points. There is a cost to that. The site has enabled software vendors to slack off on their documentation. If there was no StackOverflow the vendors would have to do better. I'm thinking of msdn as an example since a lot of the Stack questions are MS technology based. MS is far from alone though. Much of the money saved has gone to vendors. Even given those po…

Google did this as well. It's extremely annoying. They're basically telling users to "Fuck off, we don't have time for you. Go ask your questions somewhere else."

Remember to take into account that doing something similar to SO but scoped more narrowly could actually hurt the help/answer community through fragmentation more than help it.

Re: Has StackOverflow saved billions of dollars in programmer productivity?

#70

Post by GalacticDomin8r »

wslh wrote: post #50

I am 100% sure that SO makes my employees and me more productive. QAOP (Question and Answer Oriented Programming) boosts the productivity significantly. But I think in the long term, when everybody incorporates the same QAOP skills all developers will compete at the same level and new productivity horizons will came.

> I am 100% sure

Your 100% certainty means nothing to me.

> makes my employees and me more productive.

A very strong claim.

> QAOP (Question and Answer Oriented Programming) boosts the productivity significantly.

First Google results don't even know what this is.

Listen, I actually think your claims have merit, but the way you present them is "crap, crap, mega crap". Please cite something we can take take to the manager or test or vet in some other way. Otherwise you comment is just "ME RIGHT. ME SELL YOU SOMETHING".

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