When I wrote about App-pocalypse Now in 2014, I implied the future still belonged to the web. And it does. But it’s also true that the web has changed a lot in the last 10 years, much less the last 20 or 30. Websites have gotten a lot … fatter. While I think it’s irrational […]
Big news! We’re looking for a new CEO for Stack Overflow. I’m stepping out of the day-to-day and up to the role of Chairman of the Board. Stack Overflow has been around for more than a decade. As I look back, it’s really amazing how far it has come. Only six months after we […]
When we started Discourse in 2013, our server requirements were high: 1GB RAM modern, fast dual core CPU speedy solid state drive with 20+ GB I’m not talking about a cheapo shared cpanel server, either, I mean a dedicated virtual private server with those specifications. We were OK with that, because we were building in […]
I sometimes get asked by regular people in the actual real world what it is that I do for a living, and here’s my 15 second answer: We built a sort of Wikipedia website for computer programmers to post questions and answers. It’s called Stack Overflow. As of last month, it’s been 10 years since […]
Remember “cybersecurity”? Mysterious hooded computer guys doing mysterious hooded computer guy .. things! Who knows what kind of naughty digital mischief they might be up to? Unfortunately, we now live in a world where this kind of digital mischief is literally rewriting the world’s history. For proof of that, you need look no further than […]
Hey, we have a new thing for you today! Today’s new thing is called Stack Overflow for Teams. It lets you set up a private place on Stack Overflow where you can ask questions that will only be visible to members of your team, company, or organization. It is a paid service, but it’s not […]
There’s this popular idea among developers that when you face a problem with code, you should get out a rubber duck and explain, to the duck, exactly how your code was supposed to work, line by line, what you expected to see, what you saw instead, etc. Developers who try this report that the very […]
[This is the second in a series of posts about Stack Overflow. The first one is The Stack Overflow Age.] Around 2010 the success of Stack Overflow had led us into some conversations with VCs, who wanted to invest. The firm that eventually invested in us, Union Square Ventures, told us that they were so […]
I didn’t choose to be a programmer. Somehow, it seemed, the computers chose me. For a long time, that was fine, that was enough; that was all I needed. But along the way I never felt that being a programmer was this unambiguously great-for-everyone career field with zero downsides. There are absolutely occupational hazards of […]
It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post, I guess in general, but also a blog post about video games. Video games are probably the single thing most attributable to my career as a programmer, and everything else I’ve done professionally after that. I still feel video games are one of the best […]