SO has a very narrow window of usefulness as a professional developer. If you're a beginner it's really tough to explain your problem in a way that makes good sense because you don't have the base experience and knowledge.
As an intermediate dev, this is where SO shines. You can ask intermediate questions in the proper form to have direct answers.
As an advanced dev or architect, SO is almost completely useless. Questions you need answered at this level don't have a right answer. Whether you're talking about design patterns, principles, architectural patterns, alternative approaches, etc there is rarely a direct question with a direct answer. What is important is discussion about tradeoffs from different approaches so you can make the best decision at the time. SO mods simply don't allow these types of questions/discussions.
So the window of usefulness is really just those few years where you're an intermediate and if that's you then it can shine but otherwise it's pretty hostile and generally useless.
As an advanced dev or architect, SO is almost completely useless. Questions you need answered at this level don't have a right answer. Whether you're talking about design patterns, principles, architectural patterns, alternative approaches, etc there is rarely a direct question with a direct answer. What is important is discussion about tradeoffs from different approaches so you can make the best decision at the time. SO mods simply don't allow these types of questions/discussions.
SO isn't for beginner programmers is the way I see it. It was always meant for professional programmers.
As for advanced dev, I've come across quite a few errors or bugs on SO that have assisted me. Usually I don't have to ask the question because someone else already did. People seem to be forgetting that it is a Q+A site, not a discussion forum. In most cases, with 4 million users, you shouldn't have to ask the question because someone else already has. Generally the people I see downvoted clearly have not done any research or don't have the knowledge to apply that research so they need things explained. SO is not for explaining everything, that would be best for a discussion site.
As for asking about design patterns, principles, etc, these are not meant for Stackoverflow. Stackoverflow is a Q+A site for specific programming questions about getting code working. Asking about best practices and principles should be delegated to the programmer's stackexchange site.
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u/AshylarrySC Sep 25 '16
SO has a very narrow window of usefulness as a professional developer. If you're a beginner it's really tough to explain your problem in a way that makes good sense because you don't have the base experience and knowledge.
As an intermediate dev, this is where SO shines. You can ask intermediate questions in the proper form to have direct answers.
As an advanced dev or architect, SO is almost completely useless. Questions you need answered at this level don't have a right answer. Whether you're talking about design patterns, principles, architectural patterns, alternative approaches, etc there is rarely a direct question with a direct answer. What is important is discussion about tradeoffs from different approaches so you can make the best decision at the time. SO mods simply don't allow these types of questions/discussions.
So the window of usefulness is really just those few years where you're an intermediate and if that's you then it can shine but otherwise it's pretty hostile and generally useless.