Why Am I Still Using Stack Overflow?
The reduced traffic on Stack Overflow has been attributed to the fact that developers are using ChatGPT to solve their problems. But why am I still using Stack Overflow?
“Knowing how” vs “knowing that”
With a sufficiently clear prompt, ChatGPT usually returns the correct code right away. You can even ask it to explain the reasoning behind a particular answer step by step. On the other hand, searching through Stack Overflow and finding the right answer sometimes takes hours. Often, you also encounter a “similar” answer that you need to tweak to solve your problem. So, why on earth am I still doing it?
In the height of the debate on AI and the future of medicine, Siddhartha Mukherjee — a well-known oncologist — published “A.I. versus M.D.” and this paragraph stood out to me:
In 1945, the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle gave an influential lecture about two kinds of knowledge. A child knows that a bicycle has two wheels, that its tires are filled with air, and that you ride the contraption by pushing its pedals forward in circles. Ryle termed this kind of knowledge — the factual, propositional kind — “knowing that.” But to learn to ride a bicycle involves another realm of learning. A child learns how to ride by falling off, by balancing herself on two wheels, by going over potholes. Ryle termed this kind of knowledge — implicit, experiential, skill-based — “knowing how.”
In my opinion, the process of figuring out what the right question to ask is, what answer is most relevant to you, and how that answer can be modified to solve your problem on Stack Overflow is a matter of “knowing how.”
My experience as an educator has also led me to believe that “Knowing how” can help you learn to “knowing that” more often than the other way around. It gives you an opportunity to learn about learning!
Finding purple links in your search
Many times, when searching for answers, I found myself clicking on a purple link — the “hello, old friend” feeling.
For me, a portion of those “old friend” links pertains to questions related to bash commands, IAM policies, and similar topics that are essential to my project but won’t be the core problem I am dealing with. For these types of questions, I tend not to pay excessive attention to the details of the answers and instead choose one that resolves my issue at that moment. This could be a good candidate for ChatGPT but I am still nervous that I might miss learning something from reading the comments and replies.
There is also a significant number of questions that are at the core of my problem, I had the same problem in the past, and can’t recall it at all! The work routine makes me forget the individual pieces of new information that I encounter in a given day. Seeing the purple link helps me become more aware, pay closer attention, and paves the way to encode that information into my memory.
Community is at the core of Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow has a clear purpose. It is centered around knowledge exchange within the global developer community. We pose questions, compose answers, upvote both questions and answers, and revise the answers as technology evolves.
Stack Overflow has evolved over time to reward good community behavior. We learn from our peers how to formulate good questions and write clear, concise answers. This is the closest to a social and collaborative learning environment for learning beyond my immediate colleagues.
Do I even use ChatGPT?
YES! I haven’t been writing a single line of RegEx since it was out and I can’t tell how grateful I am for it!
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