The main problem before AI was that the community on SO was quite corrosive and many questions were shot down or deleted with no recourse. Post-AI, the only thing SO would have going for it would be the community, which it doesn’t. Maybe it would be useful for niche questions and truly hard problems, but I wonder how many people have just given up on it for the community aspects alone.
For a couple of months I tried to ask a very tricky question involving Linux sockets API and its strange behavior in some cases causing unexpected slow-downs. The tricky part was that I used my own programming language to interact with sockets and thus examples provided were written in it. Since it was my first question on Stackoverflow I decided to create my post in the playground (or how it's called, I don't remember). The answer of a couple of gatekeepers was shocking - they said that it's likely a problem with my language and not with Linux sockets API and I should rewrite my examples in C instead. I never did this for obvious reasons. One of suggestions was to update my OS, since it was somewhat outdated, which isn't that good advice too. Later I have found myself what was the problem - it wasn't something wrong with my programming language, but I just managed to hit some connection limits in the kernel.
I presume this happens nowadays frequently. All easy questions are answered by chat-bots or have ben already answered and hard questions don't pass gatekeeping.
> Rewriting it in C can prove that the problem is not in your programmin language
It's a lot of work of rewriting it in C. It's doable, but impractical. And such rewrite may introduce new bugs.
Proving that the problem isn't in my language wasn't necessary - there were no room for it to introduce such kind of bug. Language bugs are usually manifest themselves in a way different way, (like broken binary code leading to crashes or accepting invalid code). That's why I have created my question in a first place - while I was sure, that it wasn't a language bug.
> Outdated OS can be the problem as well.
Outdated OS can't be a problem. Basic socket functionality was implemented eons ago and all known bugs should be fixed even in pretty outdated versions of the kernel.
> What kind of advice did you expect?
Eventually I have found myself, that in my test program I create too much connections for a TCP server and its internal connection queue overflows. But it took some time to find it, way longer compared to what could be achieved if my SO was answered. The problem was not so hard to spot considering that I have described what exactly I do. Even providing code examples wasn't necessary - textual description was enough.
Could very well be that your language was the issue and writing a small proof of concept for the specific use case that's problematic in a battle tested language other people know is a standard trouble shooting step. Especially if it was a rare limiting error, that sounds like a trivial thing to be implemented in C with a simple for loop and some dummy data perhaps.
Same with the OS. Only because socket functionality is decades old doesn't mean that you can't hit a recently introduced bug, that could have been fixed in a new version. That also is a standard troubleshooting step.
It doesn't make for bad advice only because you're too lazy to do it.
I tried to use StackOverlow to get an answer when I was learning how to code. The place was so hostile, I literally hired a developer on Upwork to be my personal “tutor.” AI now gives any willful student an on demand tutor or teacher. It’s up to the student to have the thirst for knowledge.
The main problem before AI was that the community on SO was quite corrosive and many questions were shot down or deleted with no recourse. Post-AI, the only thing SO would have going for it would be the community, which it doesn’t. Maybe it would be useful for niche questions and truly hard problems, but I wonder how many people have just given up on it for the community aspects alone.
For a couple of months I tried to ask a very tricky question involving Linux sockets API and its strange behavior in some cases causing unexpected slow-downs. The tricky part was that I used my own programming language to interact with sockets and thus examples provided were written in it. Since it was my first question on Stackoverflow I decided to create my post in the playground (or how it's called, I don't remember). The answer of a couple of gatekeepers was shocking - they said that it's likely a problem with my language and not with Linux sockets API and I should rewrite my examples in C instead. I never did this for obvious reasons. One of suggestions was to update my OS, since it was somewhat outdated, which isn't that good advice too. Later I have found myself what was the problem - it wasn't something wrong with my programming language, but I just managed to hit some connection limits in the kernel.
I presume this happens nowadays frequently. All easy questions are answered by chat-bots or have ben already answered and hard questions don't pass gatekeeping.
Isn’t that good advice? Rewriting it in C can prove that the problem is not in your programmin language.
Outdated OS can be the problem as well.
What kind of advice did you expect?
> Rewriting it in C can prove that the problem is not in your programmin language
It's a lot of work of rewriting it in C. It's doable, but impractical. And such rewrite may introduce new bugs.
Proving that the problem isn't in my language wasn't necessary - there were no room for it to introduce such kind of bug. Language bugs are usually manifest themselves in a way different way, (like broken binary code leading to crashes or accepting invalid code). That's why I have created my question in a first place - while I was sure, that it wasn't a language bug.
> Outdated OS can be the problem as well.
Outdated OS can't be a problem. Basic socket functionality was implemented eons ago and all known bugs should be fixed even in pretty outdated versions of the kernel.
> What kind of advice did you expect?
Eventually I have found myself, that in my test program I create too much connections for a TCP server and its internal connection queue overflows. But it took some time to find it, way longer compared to what could be achieved if my SO was answered. The problem was not so hard to spot considering that I have described what exactly I do. Even providing code examples wasn't necessary - textual description was enough.
Your arguments fall flat.
Could very well be that your language was the issue and writing a small proof of concept for the specific use case that's problematic in a battle tested language other people know is a standard trouble shooting step. Especially if it was a rare limiting error, that sounds like a trivial thing to be implemented in C with a simple for loop and some dummy data perhaps.
Same with the OS. Only because socket functionality is decades old doesn't mean that you can't hit a recently introduced bug, that could have been fixed in a new version. That also is a standard troubleshooting step.
It doesn't make for bad advice only because you're too lazy to do it.
So how will LLMs be trained when SO has no longer any up to date, relevant information? From all the LLM-generated phony crap pages you hit nowadays?
The AI centipede.
A major focus of AI companies will be to seek precious pre-slop data, a bit like low-background steel. Krazam has a skit about this.
I tried to use StackOverlow to get an answer when I was learning how to code. The place was so hostile, I literally hired a developer on Upwork to be my personal “tutor.” AI now gives any willful student an on demand tutor or teacher. It’s up to the student to have the thirst for knowledge.
I'm guessing if Stackoverflow is sold now, it'd be worth $1.8m instead of $1.8b.
yeah it is dead, turns out most of those questions were just people asking how to center a div… and the roasters finally got tired
Someone should make a site that just compiles the correct answers to these kinds of questions.
It's very interesting to see the opinions in the answers vs the off site opinions.
On the site itself, the opinion seems to be that stackoverflow is not dead and it's okay if there's reduced traffic and questions to the site.
Yet off site, the opinion is that stackoverflow is dead and added to that, the community isn't very friendly anymore.
It's just really interesting to see the perspectives between the two.
Top members using Stackoverflow: It isn't dead, it might even be better for them because now only hardcore people show up. No newbies.
Average programmer: It's dead.
Stackoverflow management: It's dead.
On the unreported cases side 99% of StackOverflow questions per day have never been asked.
99% of StackOverflow questions per day have never been asked.
[dead]