is posting or asking a Q on Stackoverflow frowned upon?

[esvi]

excellent as their coding career and was proud to not have posted there

That does not mean he never Googled and found a solution on SO. I find that very hard to believe.

 

[Nerfherder]

I just wondered as I got like 1000 points and wondering if it is worthwhile spending free time on it answering questions

for you cv yes

 

[cguy]

what is frowned upon (IMO) is if your question shows blatantly lack of research on your part.... I mean come on, if you had an issue, yours won't be unique and someone would have had an answer to it already. This goes the same for not being able to interpret another answer to fit within what you're trying to do.

The second thing that is frowned upon when its blatant that (from the above) you're asking for people do to the work for you. If an answer is given with pseudo code or links pointing you in the direction (some even delving into the finer side of things to help you understand the underlying concepts) and you don't accept it as an answer or refuse to understand because "it doesn't solve my problem with the code I have right now", then you're not looking for an answer, you're looking for devs to spend their free time doing your job for you

^ This! - if your future employer searches for you, make sure that what comes up is favourable - SO questions can be a minefield - rather post under a different name if you aren't sure.

Answering questions and generating a high score is a great reflection on you, just don't do it too much (we employed a top SO poster once - super smart, but spent most of his time at work on SO!!!)

 

[IndigoIdentity]

I've asked hundreds of questions on SO, I can credit the amount of dev knowledge that I have today in part to this.

For me, if anything; it's been a tool for which I use to learn and grow as a developer and I have definitely grown as a developer from this at many points where I have been truly stuck. I really have learned so much there and i've also met some awesome people who I still chat with to this day.

I try to spend some time answering questions, it's quite fun and can be a challenge at points in terms of proving your reasoning and logic against some REALLY smart persons answer and comments

The best thing about SO for me, is that that you never know who is going to try to help you out next. I've been surprised at times by talking to and looking through the profiles / Github accounts of people answering my questions. You will not believe how many EXTREMELY intelligent people hang out on there answering questions for fun.

EDIT: Anyone bashing people for asking questions likely knows less about said subjects than the people they are bashing.

 

[CorrieDeBeer]

I always wondered do you get any bonus on that site if you reach a certain points score (excluding moderation)

Like special offers, discounts etc?

They contacted me because they wanted to send me some shirts and other apparel for my contribution to one of the sites that was about to graduate. What you can do is consider it as a learning opportunity and a way to develop professionally.

Your SO account similar to your github account can be an excellent link to send potential employers.

Absolutely post and ask questions, however:

1) 99% chance though it's been answered already somewhere on the internet, get your googling skills ramped up.
2) Make sure it has not been asked on SO before
3) Post example code with your question, even if you have to create a test project to demo the issue.
4) If you figure out the answer yourself before someone answers you, be sure to update the post yourself.

Too true. That Server Fault site has something incredible like a million questions. Chances are good your problem has already been covered. They also don't like pie-in-the-sky type question. They are not about hypothetical. Real problems and real solutions.