What do you do if StackOverflow fails? ;)

I think most of the StackOverflow questions are cached on web archives or available on other websites that use StackOverflow data.

These days Github issues are becoming the next Stackoverflow.

BTW, StackOverflow lost its charm, you don't get any answers if you post these days.

If SO fails to provide a reasonable answer that means the question is either too niche or phrased wrongly.

In this case, I usually try to tinker a bit on my own and if it doesn't help, ask one of my friends who are better developer than I'm for help.

If I can't find an answer on SO I:

1. Post my own question
2. Dig deeper. Find a mailing list for the topic, find a github repo.
3. Look for YouTube videos about the topic
4. Look for someone who knows a lot about the topic and ask them directly.
5. Keep working for my own solution.

I almost rely solely on GitHub CoPilot.

I generally find discords and GitHub issues useful. Actually, I don’t find myself on stack overflow much these days. Also, some languages (like Elixir and Rust) have good discourse forum communities that have almost completely supplanted Stack Overflow.

I work with lots of pre-release code, so often time I get good coverage when asked them directly.

That's one thing great about Microsoft, their software support is unparalleled.

I read the documentation or read the source code if it's open source, not as quick as Stack Overflow but works all the same.

It depends what the problem is!

Is it just a regular programming question? (Like: "how do I do X in python?"), then I bet the answer is in the documentation and you just have to have some patience!

If there's a bug with open source software, I've found Github issues to be super helpful in many cases.

Some get mentors to help out, a buddy found it very helpful.

Only time I've had such issues is when working with newer open source libraries.

The only thing that works is a deep dive into the source code and debugging.

Occasionally, it helps you realize your mistake.

my first go to would be Reddit, Github discussions and maybe dev.to

and I will try to find out a way to launch a similar website like StackOverFlow :D

Rtfm...

I find asking directly in chatrooms like discord or slack related to the technology you are using to be the quickest. That said sometimes still nobody responds.

All else fails, digging into the docs of your stack or asking in github repo after going through the source code is the next step.

If these last ones are not possible then you should really use another tech that isn't as obscure.

I dig on my own but generally try time-box it. If I don't figure out the solution in the allocated time (e.g. 4 hours), I do a workaround and move on.

I ran into this issue multiple times, once I was developing a Share Extension (A custom view when someone is sharing something to your app from another app) for a react native based application. There wasn’t a lot of resources I could find and I ended up reading into the native IOS documentation side of things for KeyChain sharing, somehow made it work.

Don’t worry when stackoverflow is not a solution, you’ll actually learn a lot more.

I think there should be a service to archive the stackoverflow posts! But if it goes down, I believe we should lean on GitHub issues and that should be the norm!

Research is the only key. Search for it in an alternate way and everywhere possible, and talk to developers in Stack Overflow through chat. Try to ask questions in many forums as possible.

Having been a developer for 15 years most problems have been run into other people. There is the odd time where I am the first, but always looking at the underlying code always is a good place to start.

Reaching out to people who you think knows the answer in a clear concise way asking for resources that might make the problem easier to solve.

Taking a break and doing something else has been good thing in my toolbox as well.

Have AI generate a (probably correct) answer ;)
Gistlib.com

Well I've also used PHPfreaks, there's other forums to ask programming questions, often friendlier than SO. Also, I've used Fiverr successfully for minor code help on annoying Javascript problems.

If I can't find an answer on SO, I do tend to ask a question and the majority of the time yo u get an answer, if you don't, either your problem is to niche or its particularly complicated for someone to answer on SO without spending a huge amount of time.

If that happens, your best bet is to try and break it down into a smaller, more reproducible issue and try re-working your question to simplify it and hope you get an answer.

There are other places, Indiehackers maybe, although not seen much in the way of coding questions, not tried but Reddit has coding subreddits and also stack specific subreddits where I've seen people ask coding questions so you might get more help there.

Otherwise, I've been in a similar situation, where I've just taken a break, gone back to it, persevered and eventually figured out the issue, might take a few hours/days depending on how complex but you'll get there eventually.

or. you can post the issue here?

there are multiple software email lists...

php
curl
redhat/centos
ubuntu
java
etc....

so what's the issue?