The underlying issue I see here, is the geek desire to answer a question once and for all, and have beginners just fuck off and read the damn faq and stop asking. (Everybody is a beginner in a task they don't know how to do, for all it matters, but experienced people will not stay that way as long as inexperienced people).
Whereas beginners want to chat, have someone help/mentor/guide through which bits are relevant, current, idiomatic, easy, hard, tailored to their problem. Beginners don't know what to read, and can't spot it or make sense of it when they see it. (Again, everyone is a beginner, for if the seasoned expert knew what to read to answer their question, they'd be off reading it instead of posting a question on StackOverflow).
People on realtime chat services are the kind of people who don't mind (or people in a state of mind where they don't mind) answering the same kinds of questions, and talking the same things, over and over and over.
StackOverflow mixes people who want "one answer forever" nitpicking question and answers as if they were encyclopaedia editors to make them 'perfect' to be a forever-answer, with people who want "realtime help" asking, who don't care about exactly the right wording and terms and formatting and stuff. NB. that the people who would be asking, but are on the "one and done" side of things, are the people off studying the FAQ and documentation and code, and buying books and courses where they expect to find answers already existing, so they don't so often show up on the questions side of SO.
The underlying issue I see here, is the geek desire to answer a question once and for all, and have beginners just fuck off and read the damn faq and stop asking. (Everybody is a beginner in a task they don't know how to do, for all it matters, but experienced people will not stay that way as long as inexperienced people).
Whereas beginners want to chat, have someone help/mentor/guide through which bits are relevant, current, idiomatic, easy, hard, tailored to their problem. Beginners don't know what to read, and can't spot it or make sense of it when they see it. (Again, everyone is a beginner, for if the seasoned expert knew what to read to answer their question, they'd be off reading it instead of posting a question on StackOverflow).
People on realtime chat services are the kind of people who don't mind (or people in a state of mind where they don't mind) answering the same kinds of questions, and talking the same things, over and over and over.
StackOverflow mixes people who want "one answer forever" nitpicking question and answers as if they were encyclopaedia editors to make them 'perfect' to be a forever-answer, with people who want "realtime help" asking, who don't care about exactly the right wording and terms and formatting and stuff. NB. that the people who would be asking, but are on the "one and done" side of things, are the people off studying the FAQ and documentation and code, and buying books and courses where they expect to find answers already existing, so they don't so often show up on the questions side of SO.
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