I can't count the number of times I've Googled for a programming question where the answer is found on a Stack Overflow page I've written. If it's a particularly old answer that I've completely forgotten, I've even thought to myself, "Wow this genius sounds just like me!"[1].
[1]: ... as well as "This idiot has no clue what he's talking about!"
The next day:
- you comment: "hey, can someone explain the downv-- oh wait, that was me"
P.S. Recursive bonus: closed with a comment ("you should just google it") and now actually the top result in search output (happens quite frequently) :)
To comment on the headline, I am an experienced developer who also uses Google and DuckDuckGo several times per day. It's often faster to look up a method in the Java or Ruby stdlib that way, rather than navigating through the official docs hierarchy.
Now you hit the same problem search -- and find you original question. But wait! Now there are half-a-dozen other people with the same problem! So you click on all of those links.
But none of them could find an answer either. Bonus points if there's a guy who comes in condescendingly and quotes a manual or some other standard piece of information -- which is also wrong. This is usually because they didn't pay enough attention to understand the question in the first place.
I always answer my own questions if no answer was given and I found a workaround/hack to solve it. Not for myself, but chances are that in few years, if I search for the same question I'll find my own.
I'd say at least half of the questions/answers I come across are closed flagged as vague, or whatever but at the same time, were incredibly informative, useful and exactly what I was looking for.
The SO moderators need to chillax a bit.
It took two hours to carefully craft my question just to have it immediately shot down. It is needless to say I have not posted again since.
I just assume that my question won't fit their guidelines, regardless of what it is, these days.
I think they're over-moderating the site. It's a shame because it's MUCH better than what was before.
However, even more often I find answers that I upvoted in the past (sometimes I deliberately look for them, sometimes by accident). When I see an upvote from myself, I can be sure I can immediately use the answer because I already verified it in the past. SO is like a big, googleable, writable public wiki for me, with annotations.
It amazes me that many colleagues do not have an account, or have an account but never write or upvote anything.
The free rider problem is real, that's for sure.
The SO people have done a great job of not requiring accounts. You can even start asking and answering questions without an account, if memory serves right.
That lots of your coworkers get by without an account is a feature of SO!
For example: https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/edit/4811... sum and average of posts score who have a comment starting with the word hacker or news.
Heh, me too, especially on Stack Overflow. I wish they'd give us a better way to organise our answers rather than having to rely on tags or bookmarks in our browsers.
If I find a problem I can't solve I will post a question on Stack Overflow, then I go back to work trying to solve it. If I find the solution before someone else does I answer my own question on Stack Overflow.
My most updated answers have been to questions I asked in the first place.
I also get a chuckle when someone I know says they were googling a problem and found my post on Stack Overflow.