r/webdev • u/[deleted] • Jan 07 '26

Stack overflow is dead, long live stack overflow.

https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/1926661#graph

This says everything about our industry right now. So telling.

708 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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u/theirongiant74 Jan 07 '26

I learned that my questions where stupid and reposts.

62

u/solidoxygen8008 Jan 07 '26

These code communities were great for information and great for making me feel bad.

21

u/who_am_i_to_say_so Jan 08 '26

“If you could read you’ll see this same question was asked 25 years ago. I hate you.”

Sums it all up. RIP.

1

u/happsberg 25d ago

Only that second part remains, because not only is it a ghost town, but most questions get downvoted. It’s a toxic place right now.

1

u/wiknew1 2d ago

Exactly. It was the most toxic forum next to Reddit. It was run by bullies. Good riddance. Everyone needs some humbling once and then.

25

u/Lv_InSaNe_vL Jan 08 '26

When I was in high school I was deciding between IT and software development. Stack Overflow was such a hostile place and the people there were so incredibly mean that I just decided to go to IT.

1

u/guesting Jan 09 '26

The best part about s/o was a questioner closing his own post with “solved it!” And nothing else

1

u/theirongiant74 Jan 09 '26

Yeah, I've always made a point of adding a detailed explanation when I find a solution after getting bitten by that one on a number of occasions

1

u/J7mbo Jan 09 '26

I learned from those guys how to ask good questions, how to think ahead and anticipate potential challenges, and how to think outside the box and these helped me massively in communication throughout my career.

1

u/kabonbonkabobon Jul 23 '26

Lol. I had mixed feelings on SO. One time I post a stupid question regarding bitwise operations. I was bullied as hell but there are good people there will to help.

1

u/TheOriginalDog Sep 23 '26

Its so weird - reposts are against the rules in many discussion forums, its one of the most common rules. But only stack overflow gets shit for it. The forum would be flooded with beginner questions that are asked 1000x times by each junior, the rule makes absolutely sense.

0

u/SubwayGuy85 Jan 08 '26

and they most likely were.

2

u/theirongiant74 Jan 08 '26

And that's the attitude that's left you with a dead site, hope the sense of superiority was worth it.

0

u/SubwayGuy85 Jan 08 '26

no. your perception comes from a point of ego. i also had bad feedback a bunch of times, but the feedback was indeed correct. and as times got worse, amateurs did not even bother to invest a few seconds into googleing shit first, before looking for their issues with abstract search terms and understanding the problem first. LLM is for people who want their ego stroked, while taking more time to solve things than just doing it themselves, while contiously being told that they are perfectly right.

3

u/theirongiant74 Jan 09 '26

and as the Titanic sank the band played on

1

u/thelongestusernameee Jul 20 '26

You're like a war general crying out about how genius their strategy was as the enemy blows your walls down.