I think the comparison is apples and oranges to a certain extent, though.
SO is a site where you go and ask questions, and hopefully get answers, about technical issues you might have encountered on this or that technology and the more you answer and the more people like your answers the more points you have. That's it.
dev.to is another thing:
Where programmers share ideas and help each other grow. It is an online community for sharing and discovering great ideas, having debates, and making friends. Anyone can share articles, questions, discussions, etc. as long as they have the rights to the words they are sharing. Cross-posting from your own blog is welcome.
You can see it for yourself by spending some time on it. People talk about programming, technology at large, their own jobs, their own struggles, what goes on in their minds, they talk about the experience of being women in tech, they ask the opinion of their peers on a wide range of dev-related topics and sometimes even "off" topics. All of this in a friendly environment which is kind of a unicorn if you think about it.
There are friendly people on StackOverflow and on Hacker News and I'm sure there are people who are less friendly on dev.to as well, but the overall experience here is just different than from other places.
These are good conversations, on dev.to, highlighting what's good or less good about SO:
Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming. It’s Time for That to Change.
Scott Hannen
I asked my first StackOverflow question
Emmanuel Raymond
I think the comparison is apples and oranges to a certain extent, though.
SO is a site where you go and ask questions, and hopefully get answers, about technical issues you might have encountered on this or that technology and the more you answer and the more people like your answers the more points you have. That's it.
dev.to is another thing:
from dev.to/about
You can see it for yourself by spending some time on it. People talk about programming, technology at large, their own jobs, their own struggles, what goes on in their minds, they talk about the experience of being women in tech, they ask the opinion of their peers on a wide range of dev-related topics and sometimes even "off" topics. All of this in a friendly environment which is kind of a unicorn if you think about it.
There are friendly people on StackOverflow and on Hacker News and I'm sure there are people who are less friendly on dev.to as well, but the overall experience here is just different than from other places.
:)