Reflections From a Decade-Long Stack Overflow Member

The most important lessons I learned

Victor Oliveira

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Better Programming

7 min readFeb 28, 2023

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William Henry Gates III, better known as Bill Gates, is an American business magnate, software developer, investor, author, and philanthropist. With an estimated wealth of $129 billion in 2022, Gates has already donated nearly $57 billion to his philanthropist foundation, including a $20 billion gift announced in July of this same year. Until then, Gates was often ranked among the World’s Top Givers.

Gates has always reminded me that promoting welfare is important and personally I’ve done it countless times (by far on a lower scale), especially through the hands of Médecins Sans Frontières.

Professionally, as a software engineer (or related), there are also many ways to contribute to our community welfare. Open source projects are probably the first option we could think of. Just inside this universe, it’s possible to play formal roles like maintainer, contributor, and commiter. Despite the fact that it’s not the goal to speak about it now, it’s important to take the opportunity to mention how it’s very common for people to boost their careers via open source participation.

Exchanging expertise across Wikis or Q&A is another strategy to promote welfare. When it comes to technology, with more than 100 million monthly visitors and around 50 billion times that someone got help from, Stack Overflow is the lead platform to share technical knowledge, on which I’ve been trying somehow to collaborate over the past ten years.

A senior will probably have at least one story about how Stack Overflow has helped them overcome a problem. From the time I was an intern till this day, I could mention a hundred plots like this. Still, the most important thing I could share wouldn’t be to remember each one of them. The most important lessons I learned were between all these questions, answers, votes, and comments; I mean, how all these stories are related. I can assert that all those years of contributions are synthesized in five elements sorted from least, but not less important:

5. A Profile Is a Portfolio

Stack Overflow has shut down the Jobs sections. Sadly. So, why care about the platform profile? Well, Stack Overflow continues to engage companies to communicate with technology talents from around the world. Just because it’s impossible to apply anymore directly doesn’t mean a profile can’t be seen. It does not mean it can’t be attached to a resume using another job platform.

Even if Stack Overflow never had a Jobs section, consider the one thing all companies have in common: They all enjoy highly motivated employees. They all enjoy those talented enough not to do only what they’re paid for, but the ones that by any means also manage to help others. This provides more visibility for the company to people outside of it and helps attract other talents by presenting the people they could work with. It’s a win-win relationship.

Build a profile supporting others somehow. Little by little, inch by inch. Mine took all this time to consider something I’m proud of, and it’s far from being one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Jon Skeet, the Top 0.01% awarded profile

4. If an Answer Is Not Found, Ask

This might be pretty obvious to say, except for the part that asking good questions sometimes takes a few minutes. For starters, no one has the context of the issue to be asked, which means that to get a proper answer to the question, it’s mandatory for it to be as descriptive and accurate as possible, otherwise it can be downvoted and/or closed.

Questions acceptance comparison expressed by votes cast

Also, it’s important to keep in mind that there’s a guideline on how to ask questions to keep things organized. For example, opinion-based questions should be avoided since their answers are subjective and will rely on a person’s perspective.

A best practice question that was flagged as opinion-based

Another common thing that may prevent people from asking is laziness. Yes, laziness. Not because just typing can be exhausting to them, but ’cause depending on the question, it demands formatting. Questions usually relate to specific coding, algorithm, or programming language problems. Therefore they are allowed to use Markdown as a way to enhance readability. To those unfamiliar with it, Markdown is a lightweight markup language, and even though not complex or mandatory, they might need to learn a new language syntax to better picture a doubt.

An example of questions richly filled with Markdown resources

3. Found an Answer? Post It Right Away

Just like asking takes some time, answering follows the same principles. The difference between questions and answers, though, is that there is only one question to be asked when there could be many answers. Answers need to be concise, then. It’s not just about providing the solution. Answers demand an explanation of what exactly is being proposed to solve the problem.

A question with 38 answers, being the accepted answer properly explained

Whether finding a question without an answer or adding a new answer to an old doubt, to make sure the posted solution is as accurate and concise as possible, it’s highly recommended to write about it as soon as it’s found. Why? To lose track of the original issue and what precisely has solved it happens frequently. Unexpectedly, someone would keep an open tab to contribute to a question later. The standard behavior of many people is to flood the browser, opening a tab for each subject they’re trying to handle; not to work with a single tab opening and closing these subjects once they’re no longer a concern.

2. Even Small Contributions Matter

People might not be in the mood to ask or answer. Still, there are other ways to contribute to Stack Overflow. The simplest, as noticed through the other examples, would be to cast votes. No words required; just a click. This effortless gesture is highly likely to lead other people toward a great question and its best answer.

Comments are also another way to support the community. It’s rare, but sometimes a comment can be more helpful than the answer itself. This event normally takes place when the answer gets “deprecated,” and someone wants to redirect people to a possible newer solution. Sometimes, people also use the comments to point out an important detail forgotten to be mentioned in the answer, or (even better 😂) they just want to express how frustrated they got.

1. Do Not Just Copy and Paste

Finally, to the questions properly answered: Instead of copying and pasting solutions, understand what’s being proposed. Take the time and opportunity to learn. The welfare promotion through knowledge is only fully accomplished when this wisdom, inside or outside Stack Overflow, reaches other people.

Countless things could be done to make the world a better place for living. I found my own way, hoping to inspire others. Regardless, by personally donating time/resources or professionally by sharing knowledge via open source projects, Wikis, Q&A platforms, etc. — just start. Today. Maybe write a small article like this.

I would like to give special thanks to Stack Exchange Inc. for developing and hosting Stack Overflow, the community for generating content among more than 20 million questions asked, and moderators (especially the ones who volunteer through elections) for handling our human exceptions.

And you? What’s your personal or professional welfare story? Tell me more about your perspectives in the comments. Thank you for reading until the end. Stay tuned for upcoming articles! =}