Introducing Stack Decisions | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Stack Decisions

stackshare.io

46 pointsGordonS7 comments

This doesn't seem that good an idea, reading about people's chosen stack is somewhat interesting but they all seem somewhat the same, in some cases you know that the stack explanation boils down to this is our hammer, the problem our nail, and anyway the number of meaningful stack combinations seem much less than the number of meaningful questions one can ask on just about any complex subject matter.

maybe I'm just in a curmudgeonly mood.

OP here- I agree that that discussions are more interesting. A question about a stack is actually something we encourage and will encourage more in the comments for Decisions. But there are still a lot of problem/solution combos that can be useful without a discussion attached (these usually come in the form of full blog posts).

Our hope is actually that over time, you'll end up with this repository of discussions around problems/solutions for a wide range of use cases that you can come back to whenever you need help.

I’ve been looking for something in this direction for some time, though I don’t think this quite does it. I really want something that helps me make decisions on tools as I enter into new fields of development. For example, I’ve been mostly a backend engineer the last 5-10 years and web development has changed a lot since I last did it before then. What are the tools, libraries, architectures, testing components, etc. that go into building modern web applications? What about the same for IoT devices?

My take on Stack Share has been that it’s trying to just get just enough eyeballs to be a viable recruiting tool. I’ve rediscovered it a few times and each time I leave disappointing because I don’t really find anything helpful.

After the last time I bumped into it, I started considering creating something to address what I’m looking for above, but I’m not sure what would motivate developers to help build this body of knowledge that I wish existed. What do you all think it takes to rally developers around creating something like this?

Founder of StackShare here- it's not a recruiting tool and it never has been. Used for recruiting, definitely. Companies link to StackShare all the time in job posts (even in the Who's Hiring thread) to show applicants the stack they'll work with. But we don't have a recruiting product nor market ourselves as one so not sure how we come across as that.

Not finding anything useful could be a fair point, but it depends on what you're looking for. If you've been trying to get a better understanding about a tool that you don't know about, I'd love to see a better resource (I don't know of any). If it's a tool that you already know about then you could certainly make the case if you want to do a full deep dive, consumer-reports style. But again I don't know of a single place to go for that.

Regarding your first point, there's no shortage of online courses and tutorials to help you when you're entering a new area of development which often go into the tools aspect. Curious- why don't those work for you? Here's a good one for React that does cover tools: https://reactforbeginners.com/

Lots of React-related decisions so far - https://stackshare.io/tool/react/decisions. Beyond the reasons why they chose React, I like seeing the complementary tools like react-mentions.

Or you just read HN directly. what they call their feed is just a selection of relevant HN posts.

Decisions can be really useful to see not only why other users selected the stack they use, but also what related tools they used. The conversation that come out of that can be really informative to make a long term decision.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com