This text is intended and written as an addition to "».
I must say right away that I agree with Matt Birner in almost everything. But I have a few additions that I think are important enough that I would like to share.
I decided to write this note because in the seven years spent on SO, I have studied the community quite well from the inside. I answered 3516 questions, asked 58, entered hall of fame (top 20 worldwide) in both languages, in which I write constantly, I made friends with many smart people, and I actively use, perhaps, all the opportunities provided by the site.
Every morning, over my morning coffee, I open my newsfeed, twitter, and — SO. And I think that this site can give a developer much more than a copy-paste snippet, thoughtfully suggested .
Self-development
Some time ago I came across this tweet:
Paradoxically, I find the best way to learn a new languages is to answer questions rather than ask them. —
Then I was a little surprised by the way the question was raised, but over time I became convinced that this was the pure truth. , and similar sites provide an opportunity to solve spherical puzzles in a vacuum, and even discuss your solution with nice friendly people. The vast majority of books today are supplemented with examples that you can download and run. On github, you can find an interesting project in the language you are learning, and dive into the abyss of someone else's source code. What's up here SO? The answer is simple: only SO questions are born of vital necessity, and not the bizarre imagination of specific people. When answering such questions, we inevitably hone our ability to think succinctly (within the syntax of our language), shift frequently used patterns into the active memory area, and when reading other people's answers, we compare them with ours and remember the best approaches.
If the answer to a question asked by strangers is not immediately obvious - even better if it is - then finding the right solution brings much more skills than finding the answer to a puzzle from hacker Rank.
Objective assessment by the community
For developers who call themselves seniors and above, it is quite important to be able to compare their own sense of their own coolness with the objective opinion of strangers. I have worked in teams where my level of skills and abilities did not raise any questions from anyone. I literally felt like a guru. Active participation in discussions SO pretty quickly this myth in my mind was dispelled. It suddenly became obvious to me that to the level of "señor" - I still have to grow, grow, and grow. And I am very grateful to the community for that. The shower was ice cold but very invigorating and exceptionally helpful.
Now I can close any question as a duplicate:
or to answer/unblock a community vandal-protected question:
It motivates. After 25000 reputation, all statistics are opened to users SO and permission .
Pleasant acquaintances
Active presence in the camp of responders has led to the fact that I met many really outstanding developers from different countries. This is great. They are all very interesting people, and you can always ask them directly to review the code of some difficult library that we decided to put in OSS. The qualification of two such volunteer reviewers allows you to turn any clumsy-hewn blank into elegant and bulletproof code, ready for use.
Rumors about a "toxic atmosphere" are at least greatly exaggerated. I cannot speak for the communities of all languages, but rubyand elixir segments are extremely friendly. To run into unwillingness to help, you need to demand in an ultimatum form to write the homework code, inaccurately throwing out something like:
I need to calculate a sum of all prime numbers less than 100. The solution must not use core iterators. How do I do that?
Yes, such “questions” come across, and they are minus. I don't see this as a problem; SO is not a free service where people suffering from an excess of free time solve other people's homework for free.
To be ashamed of poor English, or insufficient experience, is not worth it at all.
Career bonuses
I have a fairly rich profile on github, but I only felt the real onslaught of headhunters when I entered the top-20 and my avatar appeared on the title pages of the respective languages. I am not looking for and do not intend to change jobs in the foreseeable future, but all these offers both help maintain my own self-esteem in shape and form the basis for the future; If I suddenly feel like changing jobs, I won’t have to bother with the search.
Doesn't take long
I have often heard from various people that SO only lazy people answer, and real professionals from morning till night sawing source codes for business needs. I don't know, maybe there are people somewhere who can screw up code without stopping for sixteen hours straight, but I definitely don't belong to them. I need breaks. A great option for a break in the workplace, which is not too relaxing, and does not enter into endless procrastination mode, just “answer a couple of questions.” On average, this brings dozens of reputation per day.
Opens the chakras and cleans the carburetor
Helping people is good. I am pleased that in addition to the usual face-to-face teaching, I can help - and help - random people from Wyoming, Kinshasa and Vietnam.
Am I competent enough to answer questions?
Yes.
We all make mistakes, and if this happens, the community will correct. I note: they don’t shit on the sly into karma, but downvote the answer (in the vast majority of cases - with an explanation of what exactly is wrong here). It makes sense to delete the downvoted answer, and the downvotes will be rolled back. (Deleted replies are still visible to people with more reputation than 10000, but they, believe me, have not seen such a thing).
In conclusion
It seems to me important and necessary to participate in the improvement of the world, and the answers to SO - a good option to do this without getting off your work chair. If I managed to convince someone to start answering today, I will be very happy.
Source: habr.com