“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. 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.
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STACK OVERFLOW HEADACHES
The Year's Most Vexing Programming Issues
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Tap each number to see how they stack up.
By Andrew Thompson • Design by Lucy Quintanilla
TOTAL QUESTIONS 4031
TOTAL ANSWERS 1659
facebook
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2050
TOTAL ANSWERS 858
facebook graph api
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2836
TOTAL ANSWERS 1188
google chrome extension
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2913
TOTAL ANSWERS 1223
soap
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%
Those things you add to Chrome that have a 50/50 chance of being malware.
41.89%
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%
Thwarting developers and publishers and politicians since 1994.
41.15%
You know, that 25-year-old technology that works sometimes.
PERCENT ANSWERED
bluetooth
Click the numbers to reveal the headache.
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1621
TOTAL ANSWERS 643
ILLUSTRATION BY RASTUDIO/GETTY IMAGES
39.66%
TOTAL ANSWERS 692
javaserver faces
TOTAL ANSWERS 729
safari
TOTAL QUESTIONS 3398
TOTAL ANSWERS 1523
iis
TOTAL QUESTIONS 3300
TOTAL ANSWERS 1511
web services
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%
A web server built by Microsoft and run on Windows, and thus a nightmare.
44.82%
What works in one browser doesn’t work in all.
44.18%
JavaServer Faces, a framework to create web apps with Java. Developers have already been warned.
42.45%
proxy
A server that mediates between two other servers. A building block of the web that creates stability, headaches.
43.25%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2712
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2134
TOTAL ANSWERS 923
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1630
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1838
TOTAL ANSWERS 853
windows communication
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2178
TOTAL ANSWERS 1022
webview
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2681
TOTAL ANSWERS 1292
audio
The stuff that goes with video.
48.19%
Another pain-in-the-ass toolkit for JavaScript.
47.73%
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%
The Windows Communication Foundation, an application-building framework created on top of Windows. So, you know, something intrinsically awful.
46.40%
iframe
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2545
TOTAL ANSWERS 1228
Used to embed content within a web page; responsible for a multitude of aneurysms.
48.25%
gulp
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1632
TOTAL ANSWERS 779
TOTAL QUESTIONS 4975
TOTAL ANSWERS 2435
cordova
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1653
TOTAL ANSWERS 815
oauth
TOTAL ANSWERS 1009
plugins
TOTAL QUESTIONS 6796
TOTAL ANSWERS 3353
google chrome
What works in one web browser doesn’t work in all.
49.33%
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%
Used to authenticate APIs; a basic operation of the internet made bizarrely difficult.
49.30%
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%
firefox
TOTAL ANSWERS 1337
49.29%
TOTAL QUESTIONS 3245
TOTAL ANSWERS 1618
web socket
TOTAL QUESTIONS 3530
TOTAL ANSWERS 1768
tomcat
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2855
TOTAL ANSWERS 1435
cookies
TOTAL QUESTIONS 1881
TOTAL ANSWERS 948
browser
50.39%
Some questions are best left unanswered.
50.26%
Like JSF, used to create web applications with Java. Like JSF, not easy.
50.08%
Another tool that allows one machine to communicate with another while driving humans to distraction.
49.86%
video
TOTAL QUESTIONS 2610
TOTAL ANSWERS 1291
The thing all content was advised to “pivot to” a few years ago.
49.46%
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