If there was no StackOverflow, would you still call yourself a programmer?

I call myself a software engineer. But even then yes....because I know how to read manuals ans documentation...

I generally hit SO when

"Man there's gotta bit a more concise way to do this." and it isn't just occurring to me out of nowhere and I KNOW SO probably has something on that.... ran into it enough that they've got some perspective on a thing I'm thinking of the first time.

That and sometimes rando error messages...

But otherwise SO is not the line between me making a thing work or not.

That and SO has a lot of "when to do this and why" and "why not to do that and why" that straight up is rarely covered in many books / you wouldn't find it if it was.

I almost never use SO when I use Rust at least. The documentation is so good and there's lots of examples. When I doubt my implementation I'll take a look at SO.

StackOverflow is a stinking dump pile.

It has nothing to do with programming @ all.

I was programming years before http was a thing. I also prefer engineer.

And if there was no Google will you still rate S.O. like S.O.? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don’t use SO too much. I don’t know why but the questions I’m struggle with have no answers on SO, and when I ask questions I don’t know answers to they just don’t respond.

All the answers I need are in some obscure abandoned blogs of 40+ burned out C guys who left the internet and downshifted to live in woods

I think it has more to do with the capability to solve problems on your own.

And programmer...

Puh. If I'd describe my job, honestly. I think a title won't do.

Maybe lunatic momma of da newbies, project clown and database weirdo with kinky self punishment fetish would come close. But it's missing something.

I use man pages, it's faster to just type.

man stdio,h
man string.h
man memcpy
man strcat

Also, you can search documentation for entire tools.

man yacc
man flex
man bison

lol just like that. Also, there is the info command. If it's not on man it's on the info command.

I haven’t used stackoverflow in almost a year.

first I read either the docs or the code. stackoverflow is the last resort

Stackoverflow is full of opinionated solutions, great if you use an opinionated framework, shit for everything else.

They stuck with version fragmentation. Lots of the questions need moderation cause answers are obsolete and contains solutions that work with old versions of libraries. At this point looking at documentation is faster for me then google or SO.

Stack overflow rarely has the answers I am looking for these days, I just code from the hip.

I'm studying a form of engineering, upon graduation I will have the title of engineer so obviously that's what I would call myself. Programing is an essential part thus I am able to program which means I am also a programmer regardless of the existence SO. Most of the esoteric shit I look for are in forum posts anyways

I would have to read documentation thoroughly. Makes me shudder.

If there was no SO there would be some other website that solves same problem.

I could finally *start* calling myself a programmer since nicking some spaghetti from SO wouldn't be an option anymore.

@Root Update: Still haven’t used StackOverflow. 🤷🏻‍♀️

SO is just a part of the internet, if not SO, some other website with the answer, you need to know how to search, ultimately, documentation has always existed.