The basic currency of the Internet is human ignorance

–Christian Rudder

read a very nice blog post along these same lines

Last year, John D. Cook posted a short, yet poignant post that rings true with some ideas that I’ve had lately. That is, although I have used “answers sites” like StackOverflow and Quora from time to time, my feelings about these sites have over time become fatalistic. While I can certainly appreciate a site that allows me to start on the path of understanding the answers to esoteric questions, I fear for the state of our industry when confronted with the aforementioned “problem solving sequence”. People will likely howl that they are too busy to figure things out on their own and answer sites help them to deliver quality to their customers, but I don’t buy it. Ask yourself this question – what benefits your client/employer more: reflexive superficial code copying or true understanding?

I’m not one to advocate starting each task from ground-zero, but the growing propensity for turning to answer sites in lieu of any preparatory research is troubling. Granted, this activity has always been the bane of Internet forums and mailing lists, but whereas previously reputation was built on vitriolic responses to such inanities, today’s Internet rewards the patient doling of common knowledge with “reputation” and specious promise for future rewards.

Many people however are driven to help others, and I admire their conviction. However, there are many others whom turn to and engaging in the business of answers out of reflex or baseless hope for reputation and reward. These people are selling their natural ability to reason and solve for expediency and mere baubles.

We can do better than this.

We owe it to our industry, our employers, and ourselves to do better than this.

To do otherwise reduces us to live as puppets on a string.¹

:F