In my previous post I espoused my latest love affair for Stackoverflow. I still think its an awesome site, however I recently got stung by the ever present reality that there are some people who think its for programming questions only, and others who think its for all questions, as long as they relate to programming.

I asked this question.

Sure its subjective, sure it can involve answers that apply to life in general. I even knew that it might yield answers that were opinions rather than fact. However, its firmly under the banner of questions that can be answered. Your answer might work for you and not for me, but that doesn't mean we haven't answered the question, it means the question has more than one answer. Much like the difference between a maze and a labyrinth.

I'm of the opinion that this site was created to provide value to its members. Clearly the response to the question indicates that many members found it to be a useful one. Unfortunately I'm at the mercy of editors who may or may not have a clear grasp of Venn Diagrams. I was told that my question is not about programming because its answers can be applied to any profession.

"This is nothing to do with programming - it applies to all working people"

 

 

Given the above diagram we can posit that a question that applies to all professions also applies to the profession of programming. Especially since I'm a programmer asking other programmers!

In another comment, emphasis mine:

"It's like asking how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich suitable for eating while coding - just because it's valuable to many programmers does not make it a programming question."

I'm concerned that semantics is more important to the commenter than good content when I see this. If peanut butter and jam sandwich recipes were truly useful to many programmers then why would we want to stop people from using the site to discuss it? If its useful, its a tool like any other. Discussing techniques to combat lack of motivation are as important as techniques to combat code coupling. 

Furthermore, in light of the fact that the site creators clearly condone this question I'd say that the FAQ was deliberately using soft terminology when guiding the end user what not to ask:

"Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion."

Blind adherence to the literal meaning to such a mantra is what gives us such wonderful things as fundamentalism. The spirit of what is going on behind such a sentence is to prevent questions like "Which is better, C# or VB?", not potentially useful discussion.

The key here is that if you choose to take the FAQ literally then you should also take this literally:

As long as your question is:

• detailed and specific
• written clearly and simply
• of interest to at least one other programmer somewhere

... it is welcome here.

I realize that there is a worry about Signal to Noise ratio, but the site is tagged and searchable for heavens sake. Presumably in future releases we'll have the ability to filter out tags in your search results at whim and will anyway.

The fact remains, subjective questions are some of the most popular on the site. Some see this as a scourge that needs to excommunicated. Personally I think it demonstrates that programmers on the whole :

a) Like to have a bit of fun from time to time,

b) Recognize that there is more to programming than code.

All of this is moot however, given that those people who think that all time management solutions in the profession of personal training necessarily applies to that of a surgeon and therefore programmers are clearly wrong.

Let me demonstrate with a small sample of the sorts of differences we are likely to find across two different professions:

Q: When is it a good time to stop coding?

A: Whenever you feel tired and unmotivated. Get up and walk around, maybe get some exercise and get the blood flowing.

Now lets apply this to the profession of say, soldiering:

Q: When is it a good time to stop shooting at the enemy?

I think its clear that ceasing to fire upon the enemy and then getting up and having a walk around when you are simply tired and unmotivated, could result in the untimely cessation of your career as a soldier.

I'm keen to hear others thoughts on the matter.

So I found a new addiction last night. I decided to check out http://stackoverflow.com last night for the first time. Yes I know I'm late to the party, but since I love to share....I will :D

What hooked me was three things that were really easy to achieve:

1) Registering and logging in.

2) Navigating and finding interesting and relevant information.

3) Helping others else out with answers to their questions.

I haven't actually asked a question yet, although from what I've seen that's just as good as the rest of it.

Another thing that leaves me in awe is that nobody has done this as good as stack overflow before. Q&A websites aren't a new thing. But Jeff Atwood, Joel Spolsky et al. simply took an old format and brought some new innovations to it, as well as spending some real effort in the finer details.

For those of you as yet unaware of stack overflow, the primary driving force is a score based incentive system that encourages users to contribute and to contribute appropriately. The more appropriately you contribute, the higher the level of privilege you gain. You can essentially earn your moderator status without permission from err...other moderators.

Even if you don't necessarily provide the best answer, the scoring system allows other people in the community to call out the bad answers and provide better answers. Once you've earned yourself a good enough score (reputation) you can also mark down answers you feel to be erroneous. Anyway I've harped on about how it works for long enough....visit the site and check it out for yourself.

This new(ish) website is a great example of somebody or a group of people just getting in there and doing something and doing it better. Rather than trying to dream up the next killer app, they took a generic idea and absolutely nailed it like its never been nailed before.

I know I am going to learn a  lot from this place, and I'm very excited to have new means to directly help others in my community from the comfort of my lounge room.