StackOverflow.com: A Review


I lately start using StackOverFlow.com a lot to get my answers and to help others. It is really one good site, one can hook around for a while. I love reading some of their questions. Some of those questions are that I got around in future as developer myself. The fun thing about this site than all other past forum and such site I use is the reputation points and badge. I love getting those, though I am still not very active on site and hence my profile is not very good yet. 

However the thing I don’t like it negative on questions, well actually I love it but most of users are not understanding the concept well on either side. I have seen questions like “Here is my SQL query” and then a query, but what about it? marking such question negative is good idea, but then I saw a question “My SQL query doesn’t produce result, here is my query …” that question too get negative, because person forgot to tell the error he got, but from query it was clear a syntax error. Well that is how some people read and reply.

Couple of my question has answer where from answer I can clearly tell that person even didn’t read my question properly. They simply try to paste a piece of code they have used or found, without understanding the fact that the question is not about coding but concept of piece. 

Another thing, I observe in my short time on site, is that few questions seeks a answer to syntax error, but are actually conceptually wrong, and funny thing is it got 4-5 answers all telling him different way of writing the piece of code involved, but none understand the need of person [which is obviously not written in question]. 

Seeing such situation, frankly I think I can easily suggest my fellow programmer that a person who is asking the question is either not clear on topic or not in very good state of mind [might be frustrated of his failure on topic already], but person who is replying is replying for sake of helping him, so if you want to help such person try to understand what he want to achieve and what he want to do. rather than giving him negative or useless answer. What is the point if your shared knowledge is actually a burden on community. It is a responsible job to answer in public community, “Workaround” is the last thing to tell. In programming is you are not analyzing the question before you answer actually tells how easy it is for you to lose concentration on job, and software you are making is not really going to be very effective. 

I love the site and love the concept, I used lot of forum, but will stick around on it for quite a while. However for that I need to get more time from my job. But for a new programmer, it is my understanding that if you read through the forum it will increase your knowledge.