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STACK OVERFLOW HEADACHES
By Andrew thompson • Design by Lucy Quintanilla
The Year's Most Vexing Programming Issues
“Stack Overflow Goes Down, Programmers Around The World Panic” read the TechCrunch headline. Launched in 2008, the crowd-sourced question-and-answer site has proven so useful that coders have come to rely on it so deeply, that they’re effectively crippled every time it sputters for a few hours. Their dependency’s closest analogue might be the Bloomberg terminal to Goldman Sachs. Afterall, Stack Overflow’s symbiotic system (both asker and answerer earns reader-generated points for useful contributions) is seemingly capable of solving any programming problem imaginable. But there are those questions that even the omniscient hivemind can’t answer. What happens to these coders when the hivemind fails? Who answers their questions? What happens when Stack Overflow is, essentially, down forever?] We looked at every question asked on the site in 2018 and sorted them by their tags (i.e., categories, like “Java” and “Windows”) to see which software and tools vexed the community the most. One comforting takeaway: If you’re still struggling connect your Bluetooth device, don’t worry—so are developers.
“Stack Overflow Goes Down, Programmers Around The World Panic” read the TechCrunch headline. Launched in 2008, the crowd-sourced question-and-answer site has proven so useful that coders are effectively crippled every time it sputters for a few hours. Afterall, the site’s symbiotic system (both asker and answerer earns points for useful contributions) is seemingly capable of solving any programming problem.
But there are those questions that even the omniscient hivemind can’t answer. What happens to these coders when the hivemind fails? Who answers their questions? What happens when Stack Overflow is, essentially, down forever?] We looked at every question asked on the site in 2018 and sorted them by their tags (i.e., categories, like “Java” and “Windows”) to see which software and tools vexed the community the most. One comforting takeaway: If you’re still struggling connect your Bluetooth device, don’t worry—so are developers.
TOP 25 STACK OVERFLOW HEADACHES
bluetooth
ILLUSTRATION BY RASTUDIO/GETTY IMAGES
TOTAL QUESTIONS 6796
Click the numbers to reveal the headache.
You know, that 25-year-old technology that works sometimes.
39.66%
PERCENT ANSWERED
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1621
TOTAL ANSWERS 643
TOTAL QUESTIONS 4031
TOTAL ANSWERS 1659
facebook
2
Thwarting developers and publishers and politicians since 1994.
41.15%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2050
TOTAL ANSWERS 858
facebook graph api
3
FB’s tool allows developers to work with “objects and the connections between them from Facebook's social graph.” Helpful when mapping everyone who can be swayed in an election.
41.85%
Those things you add to Chrome that have a 50/50 chance of being malware.
41.89%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2836
TOTAL ANSWERS 1188
google chrome extension
4
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2913
TOTAL ANSWERS 1223
soap
5
A protocol that allows programs running on different operating systems to communicate with one another. Turns out, they’re not always on speaking terms.
41.98%
TOTAL ANSWERS 692
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1630
javaserver faces
6
JavaServer Faces, a framework to create web apps with Java. Developers have already been warned.
42.45%
proxy
7
A server that mediates between two other servers. A building block of the web that creates stability, headaches.
43.25%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2712
TOTAL ANSWERS 729
safari
8
What works in one browser doesn’t work in all.
44.18%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 3398
TOTAL ANSWERS 1523
iis
9
A web server built by Microsoft and run on Windows, and thus a nightmare.
44.82%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 3300
TOTAL ANSWERS 1511
web services
10
A piece of software that communicates with other software using XML. For the unfamiliar, XML is a key component of the web written by demonic trolls and known to incite suicidal tendencies in developers.
45.78%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1838
TOTAL ANSWERS 853
windows communication
11
The Windows Communication Foundation, an application-building framework created on top of Windows. So, you know, something intrinsically awful.
46.40%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2178
TOTAL ANSWERS 1022
webview
A tool that allows mobile developers to take regular HTML content from the internet and turn it into a mobile app. Popular in Android. Responsible for millions of bad apps.
46.92%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1632
TOTAL ANSWERS 779
gulp
13
Another pain-in-the-ass toolkit for JavaScript.
47.73%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2681
TOTAL ANSWERS 1292
audio
14
The stuff that goes with video.
48.19%
iframe
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2545
TOTAL ANSWERS 1228
15
Used to embed content within a web page; responsible for a multitude of aneurysms.
48.25%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 4975
TOTAL ANSWERS 2435
cordova
16
A tool that allows developers to create mobile applications to using web content like HTML, like “WebView” above. There’s a reason this technique keeps showing up.
48.94%
TOTAL ANSWERS 1009
plugins
17
Anything that can be added to software to enhance its functionality, like a Chrome extension. Ubiquitous in software. Any conceivable problem can occur here.
49.21%
firefox
TOTAL ANSWERS 1337
18
What works in one web browser doesn’t work in all.
49.29%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1653
TOTAL ANSWERS 815
oauth
19
Used to authenticate APIs; a basic operation of the internet made bizarrely difficult.
49.30%
TOTAL ANSWERS 3353
google chrome
20
49.33%
video
21
The thing all content was advised to “pivot to” a few years ago.
49.46%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2610
TOTAL ANSWERS 1291
TOTAL QUESTIONS 3245
TOTAL ANSWERS 1618
web socket
22
Another tool that allows one machine to communicate with another while driving humans to distraction.
49.86%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 3530
TOTAL ANSWERS 1768
tomcat
23
Like JSF, used to create web applications with Java. Like JSF, not easy.
50.08%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2855
TOTAL ANSWERS 1435
cookies
24
Some questions are best left unanswered.
50.26%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1881
TOTAL ANSWERS 948
browser
50.39%
