Stuff I learnt from a 2k StackOverflow reputation
I’ve been a member of StackOverflow (SO in short) for over 5 years, though I’ve used it from much before. I never thought of getting an account earlier because I wondered what I would do with it. And almost every answer was always available. I used to believe that only some legendary people know answers to stuff and I won’t be a match to anyone of them.
Turns out, I was wrong. I posted my first answer on September 2016 (that’s approx. 3 years after joining). I was surprised that 2 people actually thought it was useful!! What a feeling! Since then, I started answering questions and here are some things that I’ve learnt along the way.
The rush forces the best out of you 🏃🏃
It’s a very well known fact that when you’re under pressure, you tend to perform better. That’s what happens when you find a new question to answer. You’re rushing to answer it before anyone does (atleast at the initial stages) - Finding the right references, correcting the code formatting, double checking grammar. During this process, you’re getting better at the topics that you answer and follow.
Improves your bug bashing skills 🐛🔪
If you think from a different angle, a SO question is a bug or a mistake. And your job is to fix it. Also, it’s good to make mistakes and learn from them. But, you can’t make all the mistakes. So, answering a question also gives you a way to understand the kind of mistakes that one could make. It helps you to avoid making them in your day-to-day work. This is extremely powerful and smart,
…learn from others’ mistakes…
In retrospect, I wasn’t good at JavaScript at all. JavaScript this pissed me off so much. “Asynchronous” was only one of the hardest spelling in my dictionary! Heck, I didn’t even know how to put a breakpoint in DevTools! 😆 Answering questions on SO helped me gain an understanding of these topics.
There’s more than one solution ♾️
One thing that answering on SO will teach you over time, is that there are many solutions to a problem. And, it’s OK that you couldn’t think of something better. You solved the problem, and”it works”™. This fact is quite humbling as well. You thought you knew everything about a particular subject. And then comes a person who answers in a way that you couldn’t/didn’t think of. Soak it in, learn and continue. I upvote answers that solve problems in a way that I couldn’t think of.
Gamification works ⚽️
Almost everything you do on SO ends up giving you something that’ll show on your profile. Reputation points and badges gamify this process and give you some dopamine to enjoy. Imagine a dopamine rich process which has gains for everybody! Such awesome. Much wow. 💍 It might feel silly, but this is like shares/likes on social media platforms. You’d be lying to yourself if you said that a like on your vacation photo doesn’t give you a little sense of happiness.
Answering on SO has given me some kind of confidence about my own problem solving abilities. It’s motivating to see that people are willing to help somebody for almost nothing in return. I’ll write a post about tips on finding and writing answers on SO and how you could help the community as well. Stay tuned!
