I consider myself a fairly seasoned programmer. I have written countless lines of code, work on a few projects with friends, and automated most of my computer-related tasks. I&#x27;ve been doing this since I was 12, and I am 19 at the time of writing this.<p>I can say with confidence, I have never been able to successfully ask a question on stack overflow. I think I have been banned at least once, or they deleted my account.<p>I&#x27;ve asked questions ranging from implementation of 3D matrix manipulation to avoid gimbal lock to writing a python client-side application that needs to be able to edit a google docs file.<p>Everything has been closed, locked, or down voted. Each time I followed standard procedures that we are all familiar with for reporting bugs.<p><pre><code>  - Include output
  - Sample code 
  - Explanation of what the current code does and what I want it to do
  - Pictures&#x2F;Diagrams if helpful
</code></pre>
I have NEVER gotten a single useful response. Granted it&#x27;s a great resource for programming information. I use it as a library: I can go there and look at all the books frozen in time, all with good information on a wide variety of topics. But I know, if I attempted to write one of these books or jot down my feelings on the side of a page I&#x27;d just get yelled at by the librarians.<p>There are two things that I have noticed about stack overflow: it&#x27;s one of a few sites that for some reason prides your identity over your work. Your &#x27;karma&#x27; is displayed just as big as your name, and it seems to be implied that the bigger that number is, the more right you are. I have also noticed that most of the resources that are indeed helpful are either locked, closed for &#x27;read only&#x27;, or every reply is down voted even though the responses and questions are still valid.<p>I jokingly tell people who are going into CS at my college that &quot;you are not a programmer until you have gotten banned from stack overflow for asking perfectly reasonable questions&quot;. Whenever I say that, I can almost hear a sub-audible sigh of relief from everyone in the room including some professors from other departments attempting to learn CS.<p>Stack overflow is presented as a site for the end user learning how to program. It is not.