Ask HN: Why has no one made an IDE add-on that auto queries StackOverflow?
3warrenm45/7/2025, 1:37:22 PM
Comments (4)
toomuchtodo · 23h ago
If generative AI coding assistant models were trained on StackOverflow, they already are using that data to autocomplete via inference.
krupan · 23h ago
How would that work? You'd type your question as a code comment maybe, and the IDE would do a Google search for you?
PaulHoule · 23h ago
There's nothing automatic about StackOverflow.
StackOverflow suffered from the "benign neglect" variation of "enshittification" -- once they had a social game that people would play they did not attempt any kind of continuous improvement. Looking for answers involves:
1. Parsing a wordy question by a highly confused author to determine if their problem is really related to your problem.
2. Finding the accepted answer on top with 80+ upvotes and 10 comments that say "NOOOOOOOO! This is wrong!"
3. If it's Python the examples all look like
print x
and can't be cut and pasted into your Python 3 console.
In all the quality is atrocious and I think it's a better use of your time to read the manuals over and over again until you can find answers in the manual.
krupan · 23h ago
Interesting. That's not my stack overflow experience at all. I'm fact after trying to use AI for code help for a bit stack overflow is an amazing breath of fresh air. I type my question into ddg or startpage, click on the first stack overflow result, and get a quick and direct answer that other humans have tested and vouched for. It's amazing
StackOverflow suffered from the "benign neglect" variation of "enshittification" -- once they had a social game that people would play they did not attempt any kind of continuous improvement. Looking for answers involves:
1. Parsing a wordy question by a highly confused author to determine if their problem is really related to your problem.
2. Finding the accepted answer on top with 80+ upvotes and 10 comments that say "NOOOOOOOO! This is wrong!"
3. If it's Python the examples all look like
and can't be cut and pasted into your Python 3 console.In all the quality is atrocious and I think it's a better use of your time to read the manuals over and over again until you can find answers in the manual.