

StackOverflow.com : the new venture from Joel Spolsky - pibefision
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/04/16.html

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thingsilearned
What I've always wanted is a unix command that would give me more info (user
generated info) on the error that just happened in my shell.

Scenario: I'm compiling something on Leopard and it stops with an error. I
type the command "wtf"

ERROR: compile quit because of this reason xxxxxxxxxx

> wtf

It automatically records the output of the error and saves it some web site's
database. It can find others with the problem and open a browser to the
discussion on that issue. Someone else probably already found a way around it
or there's some library i'm missing and someone there has explained what it
is.

The 'wtf' command would automatically do that "google search" for me and log
my info to help others.

~~~
thorax
Heh, that's great to hear. This is exactly what we're trying to do with
<http://bug.gd> and the error sharing database we launched last year. (Along
with FF extensions and APIs this year.)

Our long-term plan is to integrate all over the place in software. For
example, we have a proof of concept for this we announced at PyCon that does
what you're describing inside the Python interactive interpreter:
<http://blog.bug.gd/2008/03/29/error_help-for-python-hackers/>

While we're excited from a business perspective for integrating into company's
GUI apps, as hackers we're very excited about the potential here for
completely changing the dynamic of the open source community.

Imagine if every new user, casual hacker, etc., trying out a new open source
tool, could immediately get assistance whenever they ran into an error
message. What may have taken 6 hours to get configured (and maybe stopped
them) could now be a step-by-step "ah-ha" process for common scenarios.

That's precisely what we want to enable. In addition, most of the open source
community doesn't even get very good feedback on how many people run into
particular errors and give up entirely. This tool would give them the ability
to see that, track errors, and put in their own solutions for when they find
out people are running into those.

We have a lot of cool plans for this, and I absolutely love to read other
people interested in this same endeavor. We're very keen on hearing more
feedback on this.

~~~
watmough
This is really interesting.

Is this inspired at all by what Fred Brooks talks about in the Mythical man
Month, where each run of a program had to be recorded, and was public within
the project?

No hiding your bugs there...!

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goodgoblin
In my experience most of the pay-for-info sites are MS related, or I should
say, are for MS-related-technology. I used to find all kinds of great answers
in deja and then google groups, but I think that IRC is sucking up all the
latest programmer exchanges. Getting all those logs indexed onto the internet
would be of great service to mankind.

~~~
thorax
I think IRSeek is trying to do that. I know they log things in some channcels
on on Freenode. e.g.:

<http://www.irseek.com/result.php?keywords=xmlrpclib>

<http://www.irseek.com/result.php?keywords=paul+graham>

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tom_rath
_sigh_ ... I miss Usenet.

I wouldn't mind seeing a One True Site for technology questions again and sure
hope this becomes one.

~~~
sfk
Mod the parent up! For serious discussions, mailing lists and Usenet are far
superior to _any_ web forum.

I certainly would not mind reading this site in a newsreader.

~~~
donw
I think that really depends on how the forum is structured. Usenet suffers
from having a horrible signal-to-noise ratio, and while mailing lists aren't
bad, they nominally lack googlability and any sort of ranking system.

So, I think the problem isn't that web forums are bad, merely that the
interface for using them isn't as good as a newsreader. Might be a good
opportunity...

~~~
astine
I think that the fact that Web forums don't require readers is what
contributes to their popularity. They have a low learning curve.

That said, the fact that they tend to have a government of sorts, can be a big
advantage. A forum can potentially do away with trolls and encourage
intelligent conversation in a way the Usenet cannot.

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AndyKelley
If it's going to be a combination of Wikipedia, anti-experts-exchange, and
programming reddit, they should have some feature where, when the answer is
determined, all the other crap gets deleted, so that people searching into the
site to find the answers sees ONLY the answers. (And related tidbits.) Maybe a
certain "answered problems format."

~~~
Tichy
Reminds me how when searching for Linux fixes, it is never clear what version
they apply for. They might describe some elaborate hacks that have been
irrelevant for years, because there are easier ways in newer versions, but it
is often impossible to know. I wish I could find only the answers that still
apply to my version of Linux.

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rglullis
Someone posted a while ago about a website with a similar idea (I guess it was
called bugg'd) where you try to get solutions for your bug, and if you
couldn't find in there, you'd be encouraged to post the solution you found
elsewhere.

~~~
thorax
Thanks for the mention!

That's our service: <http://bug.gd>

Our services focus solely on error messages-- the goal is to make it so no one
ever has to solve any error message someone already bypassed.

While we're a solution database, it's not quite the forum as Joel's site
sounds like it will be (more like Experts Exchange).

We use error messages as a vector for connecting users with different
solutions. This let's us get a little more exact on the possible solutions,
but we wouldn't cover typical programing or sysadmin tips/tricks. For example,
we're also a Firefox extension, a Python interactive interpreter plugin, and
will eventually grow to capture error messages for all sorts of software and
help people right away while they use the applications.

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smhinsey
I'll reserve judgement until I can see it in action, but on the surface the
idea of a less spammy Expert's Exchange (I think that bit about the javascript
windows is a subtle dig at them, but I can't be sure) could potentially be
valuable.

~~~
apgwoz
Experts Exchange definitely used to do rot13 and for sure do javascript
windows. Plus, it's always within a few results on Google. There's no way he
can possibly be talking about some other site.

(edit: admittedly this is still speculative)

~~~
alex_c
My favorite feature of Experts Exchange? If you scroll down past all the
"encoded" comments (which now just say "All comments and solutions are
available to Premium Service Members only."), and past the LONG list of
topics, what do you find? The unencoded comments with the solutions ;)

Random example: [http://www.experts-
exchange.com/Database/Oracle/Q_22765568.h...](http://www.experts-
exchange.com/Database/Oracle/Q_22765568.html)

~~~
apgwoz
There was a time I remember this being true. A few weeks ago I stumbled upon
an experts-exchange result and decided to see if it still worked--it didn't.
So, I'm guessing this doesnt' always work.

------
yan
The idea is, as others mentioned, is not new. Hopefully someone with traction
of Spolsky or Atwood will gain enough momentum to make this viable, useful and
keep it on top of google results.

I know I'll attempt to contribute

------
tx
Am I the only one who feels that problem they're trying to solve does not
exist? Perhaps I read too many books or perhaps my googling skills are bad
ass, but finding information on programming issues _is not hard_ and nothing,
and I mean it, beats IRC: simple to use, two-way, ad-free, HTML/JavaScript-
free, text-only instant and real-time solution to all your problems.

Yet they want to build a giant sink of answers for technical problems. That
sink already exists, it's called Internet: post an answer to any question on
millions of message boards, google groups ans sites like news.yc. Internet has
has an awesome search facility built-in - people will find what you said.

Search for this on google: _"The author of this, David Beazley"_ and you'll
get news.yc page with someone's comment containing those words only 4 (!)
hours ago (from this moment as I'm writing this).

Why another site? Sure, they have the blogging powers to hype the hell out of
their project, but come on...

~~~
AndyKelley
I think they're going for something a little more definitive. Most of the
answers you find online are adequate, but these answers are supposed to be
authoritative. If all goes as planned, it would certainly be a benefit to the
internet you keep searching on Google, and I think if you're completely
honest, you'll remember a few times when you had a really specific problem and
you just couldn't find a good enough answer searching Google.

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rms
Good for him, that's a good idea and his network is good/big enough to make a
site like this usable quikly.

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doug_m
Its a cool enough idea but what's even more interesting is the extent that 2
behemoths of programming blogs being behind something like this will help it
be a success.

~~~
pchristensen
Exactly. I'm sure Jeff and Joel are both fine programmers, but their
audiences, SEO, brands, etc have to be much more valuable. Also, Atwood has
shown he can cultivate a large community with his blog comments, and Spolsky
has run a pretty good discussion community for years. I think this will turn
out well.

(ha - totally unintentional switch from first names to last names)

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dhotson
I really hope this works out well.

Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood are two of my most respected programming heroes.

~~~
jrockway
Really? Has Jeff Atwood ever demonstrated any programming ability? Frankly, I
think they're both windbags, not programmers :)

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Glimjaur
Shouldnt the title have been "StacOverflow.com : the new venture from Joel
Spolsky and Jeff Atwood"?

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noodle
i have faith that he'll produce a good solution, but the idea itself isn't
new, so that might hold it back on the popularity scale.

here's to hoping. i'd love to see a consolidated resource.

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Prrometheus
Great idea. People will do anything for karma.

~~~
marcus
Even post obvious one liner comments with no real substance

~~~
nuggien
Yep.

