Grandpa Tells Kids About Stack Overflow Humiliation Rituals

Description

A meme captioned 'We used to go to a special website, ask strangers for help with programming, and get humiliated in return' above a still from The Simpsons: Grandpa Abe Simpson sits on a tree stump on a grassy hill, animatedly telling a story to Bart, Milhouse, Ralph, and other children gathered around him. The joke frames Stack Overflow - with its notorious 'closed as duplicate', 'why would you even want to do that?' culture - as a bygone era now that developers ask LLMs instead, recasting public humiliation by strangers as quaint oral history told to the next generation

Common Tags

Stackoverflow TechNostalgia DeveloperCommunity GatekeepingInTech GenerationalGap PopCultureReference AIAssistants CommunityCulture

Comments

Anonymous ★ Top Pick Kids today will never know the character-building experience of having your question closed as a duplicate of one from 2011 that doesn't answer it

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

Kids today will never know the character-building experience of having your question closed as a duplicate of one from 2011 that doesn't answer it
Anonymous

The answer was accepted; your dignity was closed as a duplicate.
@TheFloofyFloof 3mo

to be fair most documentation is terrible, especially man pages
1. @agonyship 3mo
  
  Did you read the answers on StackOverflow?
2. @Daonifur 3mo
  
  Imagine trying to read C++ docs/books just to have all the code given not work and barely being able to get past basic concepts if you read headers individually, which takes forever
@dsmagikswsa 3mo

I want this similar meme before internet. I am curious
@misesOnWheels 3mo

"saar pls give code now saar make sure it work thanks in advanced"
@Diotost 3mo

Back then stackoverflow would be able to detect irf user is doing something stupid or suboptimal. LLMs will happily allow you to make the square wheel.