Mastodawn

Why is stack overflow so horrible?

Why is stack overflow so horrible? - Lemmy.World

Especially in my early days venturing into Python (with which I am still only casually acquainted), I’d google a problem and end up on an SO question outlining my exact problem, only see “closed as duplicate” or a bunch of snarky comments about how the questioner didn’t RTFM or whatever. Why do they hate people asking questions on this site specifically about asking questions? Part of being a noob is not just about not knowing the bare facts of a thing, but not knowing where to look for answers or even what to ask. While I’m on this soapbox, I hate it when people say “just google it.” because most of the time I see that phrase it’s because that forum post is the first google result.

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Boomer Humor Doomergod 1d ago

The folks who say “just google it” are often unaware of how their own experience allows them to determine good instructions from bad.

For instance, if I told you to flummox the bumdarten by fluxing the foogartner, how would you begin learning what any of those words mean? How will you know if the bumdarten docs you’ve found are even the current version?

But at some point we have all encountered someone who simply asks for help instead of figuring out how to do it. And those people are usually in management.

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fuckwit_mcbumcrumble 1d ago

Anyone who unironically says just google it, and doesn’t google it themselves and provides a link to a concise answer should be shot on sight.

Same for the RTFM crowd. So many manuals are filled with so much fluff that just gets in the way of actually being useful.

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Boomer Humor Doomergod

Yeah. If you’re gonna be all high and mighty at least prove you’ve read it by citing chapter and verse to help the noob.