AI Has Killed StackOverflow

The generational divide in tech has never been more savage! Old-timer dev with his magnificent beard is schooling these youngsters about the ancient art of coding without AI assistance. “ChatGPT? When I was your age I had to write my own code” hits different in 2024 when half of us are just prompt engineers now. It's like bragging about churning your own butter or hunting woolly mammoths. The irony? That senior probably copy-pasted from StackOverflow anyway. The tech cycle continues—today's juniors will someday lecture about the primitive days of having to type prompts instead of just thinking them.

Content rAskReddit ubobrementizo 6m If Reddit didn't exist, where would you be on the internet right now? 4 0 7 Share SINGLE COMMENT THREAD VIEW ALL Hardrocknerd1 6m Probably on StackOverflow actually getting some programming done Reply Vote

Content me telling everyone that Ican code me asking StackOverflow how to delete the first character of a string

The dirty little secret of software development that nobody tells you in bootcamp: experience doesn't mean you've memorized the entire standard library. It means you've gotten really, really good at Googling. Senior devs aren't walking encyclopedias who can recite every method signature from memory. They're just better at knowing what to search for and recognizing the right answer when they see it. That syntax you used yesterday? Gone. The exact parameters for that function? Vanished into the void. The real skill isn't remembering whether it's Array.prototype.map() or .forEach() – it's knowing that both exist and which one you need right now. Then Googling the syntax anyway because who actually remembers if the index comes first or second in the callback.

The eternal glass debate finally gets the developer treatment! While philosophers argue about half-full or half-empty perspectives, Stack Overflow users just mark your existential hydration queries as "stupid questions" and close them as duplicates. "Have you even tried drinking water before posting this? Clearly this question has been answered in the 'Liquid Containment FAQ' from 2011."

Let's be honest here. My entire career is just me aggressively Googling stuff with increasingly specific search terms until I find that one Stack Overflow answer from 2014 with 3 upvotes that somehow solves my exact problem. After 15 years in this industry, I've mastered the art of copy-pasting with style. My IDE is just a fancy middleman between Google and my git commits. The real skill isn't remembering syntax—it's knowing exactly what to search for and recognizing the right answer when you see it. Junior devs think we have all the answers. Nope. We just have better search history.