Stack Overflow Destroys Software Developers
But if it wasn’t there you’d have to invent it
I haven’t thought about Stack Overflow for some time. It seemed to be an answer to a real problem, where can programmers go to share expertise.
Then a colleague recently mentioned their SO score on the website to show how their knowledge outranked others in the room. Repeatedly. Comments like “I answered this on Stack Overflow” and links to their answers started popping up. Which would be fine, if the posts were more than tangentially related to the issues at hand.
Yawn. Another programmer who has developed an arrogant attitude for a vacuous reason.
I’m still not sure why getting a score on SO means more than answering something on Quora or some general knowledge website. You’re self-selecting the questions you answer, that are then rated by people who by definition are going to like answers that work over quality and depth of understanding. There are exceptions to this, it isn’t a rule, but in this situation? Yeah, this applies.
The purpose
SO sold in 2021 for $1.8 billion and for those keeping an eye on such things counts as a big deal. Yet us more professional programmers seem to be shying completely…
