stackoverflow and perlmonks

[Anonymous Monk]

Is stackoverflow better for audience compared to Perlmonks, even asking Perl specific questions?

[moritz]

I (mostly) left stackoverflow for two main reasons:

• They don't encourage discussions; the just want one fitting answer for each question. I don't like that style, and much prefer perlmonks'
• At some point there were so many ads on stackoverflow that I felt somebody is making big money off my posts. I didn't like that.

So at least for me perlmonks is "better", whatever you mean by that.

[romandas]

Stackoverflow and PerlMonks serve two related but different purposes. StackOverflow is there to answer specific programming questions. PerlMonks, to me, is about learning the craft of Perl, which includes questions, discussions, culture, etc.

In essence, SO is for quick answers, PerlMonks is for the Perl community.

[snoopy]

To me, one of the most important differences is pace.

In StackOverflow, threads seem to have a half life of about an hour, whereas on perlmonks, this seems to be about a day or so, longer if your question gets front paged.

If you are asking questions on SO you can expect quick turn-around. But you also need to be prepared to put the work in over this time, checking every few minutes. If anyone asks for more information and you don't respond, your thread will quickly go cold.

With perlmonks, things are a little less hectic. You still need to monitor your thread, but every hour or two is fine. In return you can expect more in-depth answers. Also you can expect an answer from anyone who logs in on that day and has something to add.

With SO its whoever happens to be online in about the hour or two after you've asked the question.

[bart]

Oh yeah, that's my biggest beef with StackOverflow too: if I check the RSS feed for the questions, and I check again 15 minutes later (sometimes even just a few minutes), I recognize none of the threads. They're all changed. It really makes me feel jumpy, and that's not a nice feeling. "Hectic" is indeed the right word for it.

[mirod]

The atmosphere on PerlMonks is definitely nicer, and there is a lot more conversation going on here than on Stack Overflow. The threaded model allows multiple refinements of a solution, from several contributors, to an extent that the single-level answer + comments model of Stack Overflow cannot match.

That said, I like the Stack Overflow interface, it's very well thought out, the message that warns you about answers to a question while you're writing yours for example is really helpful. I just hate the fact that other people routinely edit my posts.

Also I think it is important that Perl has a presence there, as part of our ongoing effort to make the language and its community more visible. It is a real shame that at the time of this writing, the 'perl' tag is less popular than the 'delphi' one, and way less than any other mainstream language. Because whether we like it or not, it is one way people use to assess the popularity of a language, and whether they are willing to use it.

[biohisham]

The one thing that I see as a drawback to S.O. is its lack of the sort of interactivity experienced here at PerlMonks. You have a question, you look the answers here, understand what you could and then maybe post a question asking further clarification and you'd find many springing up to assist, help, guide, provide links and encouragement, giving you different facets and scenarios of the problem that you could not probably see. Such insights would help someone to think like a programmer in the long run if they're committed to the cause. I haven't experienced stackoverflow except a couple of occassions and I haven't felt that sort of capturing spirit in there because it was just like someone was mechanically providing "idealized" answers without seeming to care for your level of experience while here at PerlMonks bridges are extended beyond a question/response relationship because everybody sees everybody else every day and they speak together. So Perl Monks is lively like the "The hood" but stackoverflow is formal like a "a Ticketing Vendor" maybe.

With this said, the fact that both places are part of a bigger society is what matters because if you want you can make use of PerlMonks and S.O. at the same time and not think of which one is better than the other one but probably think that they both are complementary. Though, personally I feel audience wise PerlMonks rules hands down.

[JavaFan]

My guess is that if you ask the question here, the majority of the answers will say Perlmonks is better. If you ask the same question at Stackoverflow, the majority of the answers will say Stackoverflow. And if you ask the question at Slashdot, they'll say it doesn't matter - Larry has facial hear, wears funny hats, and hence Perl sucks - you should be using PHP^WPython^WRuby^WDylan anyway.

[girarde]

Larry has facial hair[edited], wears funny hats...

Right. Like those aren't features.

[bichonfrise74]

I think it depends on the type of question / problem that you are having. If you want a quick solution without much explanation, then I think you might get it at SO.

For me, there is more discussion involved here and I think you will learn more here.

[SilasTheMonk]

Perlmonks is great for feeling you are doing something useful, whilst avoiding duty. My brief experience with stack overflow was actually quite painful and I shall not repeat it.