I really follow the ESR's asking questions the smart way guide pretty seriously(http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html) and most of my easy to difficult questions get answered easily without ever asking a question.
What I really care for is getting answers to tough questions. The problem with SO is it doesn't aim to be a QA site on the longer run. It aims to be a database of programming answers site that slowly evolves to solving most commonly faced programming problems. I don't know if their aim is to be advertising based revenue site on the longer run.
I ask a question because I want to get help. It has so happened when I absolutely can't get anything out of the problem at hand. I go on SO and ask a question, often I've been down voted down to oblivion, then I delete the question. Because all I see in response is sarcasm, cynicism and attempts by commenters to prove how big a fool I am.
To me stack overflow looks like site that wishes to attract people who already know answers to their questions, but want it put in a community wiki kind of way.
But I do agree that a simple Google search on SO sites, gives you solutions to most commonly known programming problems. And not just that most commonly known problems on areas that stack exchange sites deal with. These address most problems people face daily. Tough problems is a different cup of tea. But most common problems often get answered and their database seems to be growing with regards to those problems. And this might also be a great business model for SO.
SO was the cool new shiny tool, few years back. We all like to play with Shiny tools. Until something new, and more shiny come along.
These days most of colleagues ping me with interesting answers on quora. I would be happy with Quora opening their questions for reading without opening an account.
What I really care for is getting answers to tough questions. The problem with SO is it doesn't aim to be a QA site on the longer run. It aims to be a database of programming answers site that slowly evolves to solving most commonly faced programming problems. I don't know if their aim is to be advertising based revenue site on the longer run.
I ask a question because I want to get help. It has so happened when I absolutely can't get anything out of the problem at hand. I go on SO and ask a question, often I've been down voted down to oblivion, then I delete the question. Because all I see in response is sarcasm, cynicism and attempts by commenters to prove how big a fool I am.
To me stack overflow looks like site that wishes to attract people who already know answers to their questions, but want it put in a community wiki kind of way.
But I do agree that a simple Google search on SO sites, gives you solutions to most commonly known programming problems. And not just that most commonly known problems on areas that stack exchange sites deal with. These address most problems people face daily. Tough problems is a different cup of tea. But most common problems often get answered and their database seems to be growing with regards to those problems. And this might also be a great business model for SO.
SO was the cool new shiny tool, few years back. We all like to play with Shiny tools. Until something new, and more shiny come along.
These days most of colleagues ping me with interesting answers on quora. I would be happy with Quora opening their questions for reading without opening an account.