Saturday 27 October 2018

Keep learning, Keep sharing!

A wise man once said -
 If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.


I crossed 40k reputation on Stack Overflow(SO).  And that accounts to 2544 rank in the world!




It has been almost 5 and a half years since added my 1st answer to the site. And today 1,130 answers, 144 questions and a people reach of ~21.4 million later here I am going back to where it all started. I still remember the 1st answer that I wrote - it was downvoted just because an admin read it wrong and when he realized it, he was the 1st person to upvote the answer and that's how the journey began. I am taking this opportunity to stress a very important point - Knowledge increases by sharing.



I am sure every developer has relied on some SO answers for finding directions to get their issues resolved. The reason I am sharing this today is to stress the point that if it has helped you, it would probably help a hundred others around the globe. So make sure to upvote that answer. If the answer did not work out for you but it helped you in the correct direction go ahead and add it as a new answer or a comment. Innovation is not always in doing different things, it can be doing things differently. Never hold back anything thinking the answer or question might be silly. You already know the outcome if you don't, so why not give it a try and see how it goes. If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid - as simple as that. Worst case scenario - someone correct you which not only helps you understand it better but also everyone else who is in the same boat. I personally consider this the best scenario - You don't learn anything if you think you are always right!



Personally other than technical learning aspect of it, this has helped me a lot in terms of interviews, communicating with fellow developers and expanding personal reach. I get this question a lot during the technical interview - "Why do you have so many questions answered as compared to the questions asked with just 5 years of experience?". What I have learned during the course of last 5 years is that the same question has many different angles and like I said before if you are facing a problem there would be many others facing the same issue. It could be different OS, different library version, different runtime, a different flavor of language etc. I have always tried to add more content to the answers based on the issue I have faced and today based on the shown stats there are around 21.4 million developers who were in the same boat. That's a win-win scenario!


I will conclude this post by saying - "Keep learning, Keep sharing!". Good luck :)

Sharing few more stats - Just for fun :)







PS: If you need my help in getting traction to your question in terms of upvote or bounties feel free to reach out to me at - opensourceforgeeks@gmail.com.

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