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Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

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Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#141

Post by mywittyname »

corethree wrote: post #50
VirusNewbie wrote: post #4

SO has languished so much, it’s really sad. There is a definite need here, and yet they seem happy to provide the same service they did 10 years ago while people migrate to LLMs and copilot and GH search and the like.

The irony is that for LLMs to continue to exist and stay relevant stackoverflow needs to be used and still exist. If everyone migrates to LLMs then the training data no longer gets updated. The current crop of LLMs will get less and less relevant as things change.

People will eventually learn how to LLM-optimize their documentation so that questions can be readily answered using it.

We might get to the stage where the ability of LLMs to write code / answer questions for a library becomes the primary driver of adoption.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#142

Post by agumonkey »

sremani wrote: post #134
mellosouls wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT generally solves stuff quicker and more precisely for me. I have yet to receive a badge but could add that to the prompt or custom instructions as an alternative to its encouraging words when I'm nearly there.

the context ChatGPT provides around some of my error message inquiry is incredibly useful. on stack overflow, I have to read and discern the context.

this is the whole value of GPT so far, they can pivot the structure and align it to the context at point

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#143

Post by mbwgh »

maldev wrote: post #57
jf22 wrote: post #16

I'm not surprised. These days, I use SO a lot less often. Github issues, first party documentation, Discords, and Copilot are much better ways to get help.

I'm a boomer, how do I find Discords of people coding?

I find they are linked frequently on GitHub pages for projects. If not as part of the README, then somewhere on the right-hand side.

There are also dedicated Discord search engines like disbord.org.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#144

Post by jasonlotito »

passthejoe wrote: post #127
shippintoboston wrote: post #38

It sounds harsh but I have no sympathy for the company or its community. The people running that site turned it into such a hostile and toxic place, to the point they probably pushed a lot of people out of engineering. Just completely condescending and rude jannies who were taking out their anger from being bullied in high school on unsuspecting beginners. They’re getting what they deserve and I’m savoring every seco…

If I had a nickel for every SO thread that came up in my Google searches that could have answered my question if only the SO moderators had allowed it to be answered, I'd be able to buy a few steak dinners.

This is how it works for me, usually.

Q: I have this problem.

Mod: This is a dup of this.

Me: Goes to read the other ticket. It's from 8 years ago, and the answer was "This is solved in version X."

Me, on something many versions after X, and having the hindsight of knowing that no, it was not solved in X, shakes my head. I find the solution someplace else.

I do not go back to SO because I can't be bothered to fight an uphill battle.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#145

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

this_user wrote: post #136
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Management is obviously capable of long-term planning - there just aren't incentives in place for that.

Most of them aren't Machiavellian masterminds though. Most of them are barely passable managers who are mostly just reacting to what is right on front of their noses. Company is growing? Extrapolate linearly, and hire enough people to cover the projected growth over the next 12-18 months. Growth didn't increase linearly, costs have gone up due to inflation, and we can't borrow more cheap money? Lay off a bunch of peo…

> Most of them aren't Machiavellian masterminds though.

They also aren't squirrels. They're capable of foresight.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#146

Post by kzrdude »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #103

Am I the only one that still finds SO to be quite useful? If I paste an error message into Google, it's still quite likely that the SO answer is the best one. And if it doesn't, I contribute an answer if/when I eventually find it because I still think I get more out of SO than I put in. I've received 21 necromancer badges doing that.

I sometimes contribute. There's a lot to be done on the Python side, because Python and libraries change faster than the answers do.

"In theory" - I think at least - answers should be updated when new things become possible. A lot of answers used to be "you can't do that with X, do Y instead" and should now be updated to either, "You can do that with X" or "You have to use Z"..

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#147

Post by trey-jones »

bastardoperator wrote: post #131
dehrmann wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've answered a lot of Java questions on SO. One of the themes is beginner questions, and a lot are essentially "do my homework for me," poorly researched, or poorly asked. What have you tried? What have you researched? Explain your understanding for why you think what you're doing should work. Even if you're asking good beginner questions that don't already have an answer, you get tired of reading all the bad ones.…

Who cares, people with homework need help too. They're beginners so asking them to formulate a perfect question or conduct research is basically a non-starter. If the barrier to entry is become a professional first, it's no wonder why the company and its user base are shrinking.

I think "professionals who can't figure this obscure things out" is the best use-case for SO, really. Perhaps being a professional is something to be required. I'm speaking only from my own experience. I have only ever asked a handful of questions on SO (going back to about 2011), and that's because I spend hours and hours trying to figure it out first. So yes, I think I do expect that of other questioners as well.

"Why won't my docker container build?" Well, because there's a typo in your instructions and it says so clearly in the error output. Of course we get tired of answering these types of questions.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#148

Post by ggregoire »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #103

Am I the only one that still finds SO to be quite useful? If I paste an error message into Google, it's still quite likely that the SO answer is the best one. And if it doesn't, I contribute an answer if/when I eventually find it because I still think I get more out of SO than I put in. I've received 21 necromancer badges doing that.

Same here. I look for answers about 10 times a day I'd say and in 90% of the cases I found what I was looking for, in a few seconds, for free. I also post answers when I found old questions and the answers are outdated or not complete. I know it helps other people cause I usually get 1-10 upvotes / year for those answers on old questions. Mostly about python, sql, postgres, js, react, aws and docker, so popular topics. I rarely have to post questions on my own, usually cause it's already asked and answered, or cause I'm experienced enough to find the solutions on my own or somewhere else.

Anyway, have been using SO for 12 years and still think it's great.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#149

Post by 3seashells »

rgoulter wrote: post #83
ram4jesus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked two or three questions in SO back in 2014. And it was an awful experience. I got over my Java block by not just reading my Uni's textbook but by also reading another much older textbook. I got so good at Java that I became a Lab/Teaching Assistant my last two years in college. And I helped folks the best I could in person: always kind, always patient, never blaming the student even if they didn't want to lear…

Being polite in answering questions is pro-social. It's a more pleasant interaction when someone is polite. -- Whereas, if you get rude answers, you'll be discouraged from participating. Asking good questions is pro-social. People are going to be more willing to help if the questions are well thought out. -- Whereas, asking in an anti-social way discourages people from helping out. It's still possible to ask question…

You are interpreting ability as a social gesture, taking disability as an insult. Thusyou not participating in the part of society that is learning is a good thing.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#150

Post by rrauenza »

rgoulter wrote: post #73
dehrmann wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've answered a lot of Java questions on SO. One of the themes is beginner questions, and a lot are essentially "do my homework for me," poorly researched, or poorly asked. What have you tried? What have you researched? Explain your understanding for why you think what you're doing should work. Even if you're asking good beginner questions that don't already have an answer, you get tired of reading all the bad ones.…

I'd phrase this a bit differently, for the questioner's side of things. I know from experience that when I'm frustrated, I need to keep trying something smaller (or otherwise get more information) until it becomes clear what's not working. The kind of steps it takes to ask a good question goes hand in hand with the kind of steps you'd take to solve the problem yourself. (Similarly: with domain knowledge, you know wha…

This used to be a good reference "back in the day"...

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

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