How does spam protection work on Stack Exchange?

If you put a textbox on the Internet, someone will put spam in it. If you put a textbox on a site that gets millions of hits a day, lots of someones will put lots of spam in it. So Stack Exchange uses multiple layers to block all the spam coming in. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Is it time to give Drupal another look?

For many people discussion of content management systems raises unpleasant specters of the early 2000s. But while CMS platforms may not feel like the shiniest new tech on the block, they still have a lot to offer, and they've evolved in ways that might surprise you. Let's talk ab … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Stackoverflow: New Reactions Feature

We’ve heard from our users that the inability to say “thank you” is frustrating—especially for new users who don’t have enough reputation to upvote or comment. Even when users gain these privileges, they still want to say “thanks.” | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Talking TypeScript with the engineer who leads the team

We wanted to find out what about TypeScript makes it so dang lovable, so we reached out to Ryan Cavanaugh, the principal engineering lead for the TypeScript language at Microsoft. He was generous enough to sit down and answer our questions. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

An interview code submission that wasn’t even submitted changed our process

In a previous role, I was an engineering manager for a well-known company for a particular tech stack. One way we sorted through all the applications was requiring coding tests for potential candidates. One truly stood out, and it taught me to think about what I am really looking … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Why the developers who use Rust love it so much

Here’s why Rust gets so much love, straight from the Rustaceans themselves. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Why the developers who use Rust love it so much – Stack Overflow Blog

Here’s why Rust gets so much love, straight from the Rustaceans themselves. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

10 Years In, Was He Right? “Value of Downvoting; How HN Gets It Wrong”

Paul Graham’s Hacker News is a great website to find interesting programming links and sane discussion. The site reflects a sort of post-Reddit sensibility; the design of HN was directly intended to address the shortcomings of programming.reddit.com from someone very much on the … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

At the time of this article, Kubernetes is about six years old, and over the last two years, it has risen in popularity to consistently be one of the most loved platforms. This year, it comes in as the number three most loved platform. If you haven’t heard about Kubernetes yet, i … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

2020 Developer Survey Results

We're excited to share the results of our 10th annual developer survey! 65,000 developers shared their thoughts on the state of software today. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Good coders borrow, great coders steal

Copying and pasting can be dangerous, but then again, so can many aspects of software development when done incautiously. In this post, I’ll take a look at what code copying actually means for software development, what good code theft means, and the pitfalls of copying badly. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

The most successful developers share more than they take

After interviewing several developers, a pattern started to become clear: great developers share a lot. This takes different forms for different people, but is very often a blog. But for many top developers, their sharing mindset came before their success, and was the direct caus … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Good coders borrow, great coders steal

Copying and pasting can be dangerous, but then again, so can many aspects of software development when done incautiously. In this post, I’ll take a look at what code copying actually means for software development, what good code theft means, and the pitfalls of copying badly. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

You want efficient application scaling? Go serverless

Today we’re seeing another shift from virtual machines to containers. Containers are virtual runtime environments running on top of the operating system kernel that emulates the operating system itself. That’s where the serverless model comes in. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

The most successful developers share more than they take

After interviewing several developers, a pattern started to become clear: great developers share a lot. This takes different forms for different people, but is very often a blog. But for many top developers, their sharing mindset came before their success, and was the direct caus … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

StackOverflow laid off 15% workforce

This is a key moment in our company’s history, as the whole world is dealing with significant uncertainty. Know that you are not alone. We are facing this situation together. Our goal is to stay focused on living our core values and actively connect with teammates, our community, … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Have better meetings–in person or remote

Engineers hate meetings, but they can be an effective way to get things done. With everyone working remotely, it can be even harder to get anything accomplished. Here's tips on how to have better meetings either way. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Podcast 230: Mastering the Mainframe – Stack Overflow Blog

We meet the IBM mainframe experts who are keeping COBOL modern. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

The final Python 2 release marks the end of an era

For you Python users who have been unwilling (or unable) to upgrade to version 3, there’s yet another reason to get motivated: python.org has released Python 2.7.18, the absolute last official release for Python 2.  While it doesn’t add much in terms of features, it does act as a … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

How the pandemic changed traffic from 400M visitors on 172 Stack Exchange sites

The world has changed a lot in the last three months. As we adjust to this new reality, we are seeing interesting new traffic trends and community efforts across our network of sites. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Brush up your COBOL: Why is a 60 year old language suddenly in demand?

The suddenly strained unemployment systems often run on a 60-year-old programming language, COBOL. So, how can you learn it, make big bucks, and save lots of state agencies that need new code to deal with all the new government stimulus programs? | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Covid-19 changed traffic trends of 400M visitors on 172 Stack Exchange sites

The world has changed a lot in the last three months. As we adjust to this new reality, we are seeing interesting new traffic trends and community efforts across our network of sites. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Contact Tracing from Apple and Google

Culture and science are happening in real-time during the worldwide COVID-19 epidemic, which means that Apple and Google are working together in collaboration with health and governmental organizations and rapidly publishing specifications and standards. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

The Unfriendly Robot: Automatically flagging unwelcoming comments

Unfriendly comments are an issue in our system because of the effect that their tone has on their recipient’s and future readers’ willingness to contribute to Stack Overflow. The solution to these issues isn’t to argue about circumstance or intent. The only remaining option is to … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

A practical guide to writing technical specs

Writing a technical spec increases the chances of having a successful project, service, or feature that all stakeholders involved are satisfied with. It decreases the chances of something going horribly wrong during implementation and even after you’ve launched your product. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Building dark mode on Stack Overflow

On March 30, 2020, we enabled folks to opt into a beta dark mode on Stack Overflow. Let’s talk about the work that went into it. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Ways to help the fight against Covid-19 from home – Stack Overflow Blog

COVID-19 is reshaping how we live. Many of us are now home to help flatten the curve. We’re doing our best to work from home and juggling family care on top of it all. While self-isolation and social distancing are, according to many experts, the best way to address this pandemic … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Podcast: Right Back at Ya – Stack Overflow Blog

We are stuck inside and raring to go. This week, you get double the usual Stack Overflow podcast! | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

StackOverflow introduces dark mode (beta)

Our most requested feature is finally coming to life. You can try out Dark Mode in beta across Stack Overflow and help us make it great. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

StackOverflow has now a Dark Mode

Our most requested feature is finally coming to life. You can try out Dark Mode in beta across Stack Overflow and help us make it great. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Working from home tips from our experienced remote employees

We asked some of our veteran remote workers, folks who have spent years doing this, for tips on how to make remote work effective, enjoyable, and sustainable. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

A Message to Our Employees, Community, and Customers on Covid-19

The safety of our employees, community, and customers are our primary concern. There are a number of measures we’re taking to ensure we manage to safely get through this situation while continuing to serve our community and customers effectively. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

A modern “Hello, World” program requires more than just code

The tradition of a "Hello, World" program goes back at least to 1978. But for modern coders, what's an appropriate "Hello, World"? | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

A modern ‘Hello, World’ program needs more than just code

The tradition of a "Hello, World" program goes back at least to 1978. But for modern coders, what's an appropriate "Hello, World"? | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Best practices for REST API design

Best practices on how to design REST APIs to be easy to understand, future-proof, and secure and fast. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

The eight factors of happiness for developers

I recently came across this sketchnote by Tanmay Vora, and it really resonated with me. As a developer it got me thinking about how this might translate into the life of a developer and our happiness. Based on this sketchnote here are the eight factors of happiness applied to dev … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

How to onboard yourself when your employer doesn't

I had to onboard myself. Here are some of the things I learned on the path to being a fully contributing developer and a valuable member of the development team. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Complexity Is the Constant

Why bother to learn a programming language when it will be out of date by the time I master it? | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

When laziness is efficient: Make the most of your command line

DevOps job posts often ask for automation skills, which is a positive way of asking for someone who’s professionally lazy in a way that results in efficiency. The good news is that developers can also learn a few tricks from the land of ops to make their days easier and their wor … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Requirements volatility is the core problem of software engineering

It's now been more than 50 years since the first IFIP Conference on Software Engineering, and in that time there have been many different software engineering methodologies, processes, and models proposed to help software developers achieve that predictable and cost-effective pro … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Stack Overflow Isn’t Welcoming. It’s Time for That to Change. (2018)

We <3 and believe in Stack Overflow. But sometimes, loving something means caring enough to admit that it has a problem. Let’s start with the painful truth: Too many people experience Stack Overflow¹ as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Dealing with imposter syndrome by “embracing the suck”

One thing we continuously speak about in the programming community is impostor syndrome and how to cope with it, but no one talks about tangible steps on how to solve it within yourself. What if instead of learning how to endure, we learned how to cure it? While It’s something th … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Shapeways’ software enables 3D printing at scale

While most news about the 3D printing industry focuses on advancement in hardware and materials, software has played a crucial role in the democratization of 3D printing. Companies like Shapeways have delivered software to generate 3D files, prepare and optimize them for printing … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Stack Overflow's 2020 Developer Survey is now open

It’s that time of year again—we’re launching our 2020 Developer Survey. We love watching how this survey data evolves year-over-year, and this year we are focused on collecting insights from a sample that is representative of coders around the world. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Is it time for a front-end framework?

You’ve likely heard about front-end frameworks. Names like React, Vue, and Angular abound in tutorials and Hacker News debates. If you’ve wondered why and when these frameworks are used and whether it’s time you implement one in your project, you’re not alone. A few years ago, wh … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

The live coding language that lets you be an actual rock star

Code on a screen is not likely to land you the legions of screaming fans that a sick guitar solo will. Unless you’re Sam Aaron, that is. He’s the creator of Sonic Pi, a live coding language for making music. It’s an open source project that he built which creates music from code … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

Scripting the Future of Stack Overflow

A note from our new CEO, Prashanth Chandrasekar, reflecting on his first 90 days and laying out his vision for 2020. | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago

What is Rust and why is it so popular?

Rust has been Stack Overflow's most loved language for four years in a row, indicating that many of those who have had the opportunity to use Rust have fallen in love with it. However, the roughly 97% of survey respondents who haven't used Rust may wonder, "What's the deal with R … | Continue reading


@stackoverflow.blog | 4 years ago