Today, Stack overflow has almost as few questions asked per month, as when it launched back in 2009. A recap of its slow, then rapid, downfall.

Four months ago, we asked Are LLMs making Stack Overflow irrelevant? Data at the time suggested that the answer is likely “yes:”

  • INeedMana@lemmy.worldEnglish
    44·
    2 days ago

    I’m not convinced that the number of questions asked is the correct metric. In the end the point is not to have a constant flow of questions, rather constant flow of answers found.

    There is a point in proficiency in language/library/whatever after which it is faster to find the answer in the code/documentation/test example than to wait until another person on even higher level will come and answer your question.
    Maybe we simply filled out what was needed to be asked in the beginner-bug found-intermediate space and, apart from questions stemming from new versions etc, SO does not need more questions?

    Expectation for everything to constantly grow is unrealistic

    • silasmariner@programming.devEnglish
      8·
      1 day ago

      As more and more libraries are open source on GitHub or gitlab or sourceforge or whateverthefuck, asking questions on the libraries themselves (as an issue) is often the right thing to do, too… Less centralised than SO but also the only people who care about how to do things in a lib are people using the lib, so…