Joel’s post on this (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/04/16.html) concerns me a bit because he says:
“Instead, they (programmers) happily program away, using trial-and-error. When they can’t figure something out, they type a question into Google.”
I can’t even begin to emphasize how BAD of an idea it would be to create a new site that lets “google, copy, paste, and tweak-till-it-works” programmers do those 4 steps faster. You’ll just make faster, well, as Mark Pilgrim calls them, “morons” (http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/08/16/specs).
It’s because of morons that I routinely am unable to use a plus sign in my e-mail address on the web.
What would be great though would be a programming “Q A” site where “a-holes” (again, using Mark Pilgrim terminology) could help “morons” learn how to read/use/love “the spec”.
This, perhaps, could be as simple as including a section for each question for links to authoritative references.
So when some “moron” comes in and says “how can I validate an e-mail address?”, I and my fellow “a-holes” can a.) give them an immediate answer; but also b.) point them to the e-mail RFC, a reference on writing regular expressions, etc., etc.
Give a moron a fish, he’ll eat for a day.
Teach a moron to be an a-hole, his stack will overflow?