I found that answering on Stack Overflow is an excellent way to learn some new technology! Often the questions help you figure out how to research a topic or find something out by yourself. They also often shed light on interesting or unusual corner cases of technology, that you'd most likely not find by simply following tutorials or working on simple proof of concept apps.
At least in my case, I found it worked for me very well and really helped me learn stuff I wanted to learn.
While learning Pandas (data science library in Python), I found Stack Overflow had quite a few interesting questions that served as practice as I was learning or reinforcing the concepts. For example, here is one of my answers, that addresses an interesting question I wouldn't have had to solve wasn't it for S.O.
Later on, I found my home in the Vi & Vim StackExchange, where I went from zero to hero in Vim, in big part thanks to the Stack Exchange questions pushing me to discover interesting corners of Vim! Here's an interesting technique for aligning lines in Vim, without plug-ins, that I developed and polished to write as an answer here.
Since joining Vi & Vim, I became one of the most active contributors and actually became a moderator of the site earlier this year. I really feel like I belong in that community and feel that it helps me both practice and learn more, every week!
So, in conclusion, yes I would strongly recommend answering questions on Stack Overflow! It's a great opportunity for growth. Cherish it.
Absolutely true about finding unusual cases which you would either never come across.
That's really inspiring about your achievements on Vi & Vim StackExchange platform.
I found that answering on Stack Overflow is an excellent way to learn some new technology! Often the questions help you figure out how to research a topic or find something out by yourself. They also often shed light on interesting or unusual corner cases of technology, that you'd most likely not find by simply following tutorials or working on simple proof of concept apps.
At least in my case, I found it worked for me very well and really helped me learn stuff I wanted to learn.
While learning Pandas (data science library in Python), I found Stack Overflow had quite a few interesting questions that served as practice as I was learning or reinforcing the concepts. For example, here is one of my answers, that addresses an interesting question I wouldn't have had to solve wasn't it for S.O.
Later on, I found my home in the Vi & Vim StackExchange, where I went from zero to hero in Vim, in big part thanks to the Stack Exchange questions pushing me to discover interesting corners of Vim! Here's an interesting technique for aligning lines in Vim, without plug-ins, that I developed and polished to write as an answer here.
Since joining Vi & Vim, I became one of the most active contributors and actually became a moderator of the site earlier this year. I really feel like I belong in that community and feel that it helps me both practice and learn more, every week!
So, in conclusion, yes I would strongly recommend answering questions on Stack Overflow! It's a great opportunity for growth. Cherish it.
Absolutely true about finding unusual cases which you would either never come across.
That's really inspiring about your achievements on Vi & Vim StackExchange platform.
Thanks so much for the article!
I had been thinking about this for a while, so it's always great when someone else puts it in words as well as you did!