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StackOverflow alternatives for web developers

Ingo Steinke, web developer on September 27, 2023

Popular useful tools and platforms can cause addiction and become a single point of failure in our workflow when we rely too much on using them. I ...
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Gabriel Afonso

My favorite thing about StackOverflow is not the answers, but the discussions under an answer. You can learn A LOT by reading some not-so-friendly arguments over a subject if it is popular enough to bring that amount of attention.

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Bogomil Shopov - Бого

That article is a masterpiece. I do like the part about reading more offline books, but this could be applied to some general topics or to build a skill. I am not sure one could find a solution to a handy topic quickly in a book.

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codingjlu

I have some issues with "Reasons not to use StackOverflow", the most prevalent being that

[i]t contains misleading or outdated advice due to biased voting, moderation/reputation system and the fact that StackOverflow has been around for more than 10 years now.

Yes, outdated, but that's a problem with every source, things get outdated, and I'd say that that's actually one of SO's strong points; answers get constantly updated, and modern answers rise to the top. And yes, there may be biased voting, but people grossly overestimate it; as a long-time SO user (full disclaimer I'm an SO user) I've never seen or experienced such. I think the moderation/reputation system works perfectly.

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Ingo Steinke, web developer

Some topics got frequent updates and have become valuable Wiki pages, but others haven't. I have stopped suggesting edits after getting "the edit queue is full" messages when trying to save. Maybe StackOverflow is easier to use with a lot of reputation and privileges. Of course, it's still better than AI, but it feels like an old public library where some of the books have become too dusty.

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Barry Michael Doyle

I particularly relate to your "Thinking" section to this article. Those principles that StackOverflow is well known for enforcing has made me a better developer.

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Ingo Steinke, web developer

StackOverflow has discussed various changes and innovations recently, including a staging ground for first questions asked by new users. Senior community members have questioned if it makes sense to incentive more user activity, some argue that StackOverflow should be used passively like a library, and that SO could profit a lot from those kind of users as they are likely to see more paid ads on the page.

StackOverflow has also released their latest annual developer survey, but they didn't do a great job in data visualization in my opinion, so I didn't manage to read it. I expect the upcoming State of JavaScript, State of CSS, State of ... to do a better job again. I also plan to release my own subjective State of Development Technologies this year.

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sqlmancerqueuellc profile image
SQLmancerQueueLLC • Edited

Maybe we should all RTFM :-)

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Nicole • Edited

And in this list, please do not miss the Electro Organic QA:
electroorg.com/qa/
It is a very good alternative to stackoverflow.

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Anton Barrera

but it's almost scary to ask something on stackoverFlu narcissists!

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doroness • Edited

You can also use
wpuniverse.online/

A custom search engine for WordPress and web developers. It collect and summarize dev related query for you.

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official_dulin

The monopoly really needs to be broken

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Scott Reno

I didn't know about web.dev... thanks for sharing!

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ByteCodeProcessor

I find discord communities centered around frameworks, languages or CS in general to be the go to

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edimilsonassis

Gosto muito do tabnews.com.br/