Excellent Website - Stackoverflow.com

I'm usually the last guy to find out about anything, but just in case there is a programmer on the planet who is unaware, I can't say enough good things about this site.  Whether you're a generalist programmer (like me) or a specialist programmer, these guys can probably help.

Have you been in this situation?  You google some topic you get thousands of hits:

1.  People wanting to sell you completely irrelevant stuff?
2.  People wanting to sell you a "solution" that teaches you nothing and is quite the right match anyway?
3.  Solutions that don't work so you spend extra hours chasing Alice down the rabbit hole?
4.  Solutions that don't even make sense?

5. Get pointers to links that aren't active any more?

Or you post a question on a board that seems to be relevant and you
1. Get ignored, or
2. Get a snotty or irrelevant response.
3. Can't figure out where your question even goes in their hierarchy.

Stackoverflow is not perfect.  You get the occasional useless response.  That's okay.  Someone is pushing himself.  He's learning.  And so do you, because
1) your messages are tagged and titled with relevant info, so people who are especially interested in those topics can find them.
2) the answers are almost always relevant.
3) even the wrong answers are educational (because they get corrected by guys who know more) and even the wrong answers are not dumb answers.
4) they're generally pretty polite, even when they're pointing out how you're doing something dumb.
5) they often give you the extra information of how you might better think of or approach the problem, things you had not considered, and philosophy, BUT (and this is really important) they answer the frigging question you asked!

One thing I noticed - google returns some stackoverflow results, but they are usually interspersed with a lot less helpful stuff - and not everything useful shows up.  I get better results if I search Stackoverflow directly. 

This site has improved my productivity more than almost anything I've ever done.  Seriously.  Give a whack.

I have to say I don't quite "get it."  I don't understand the nuances of the site.  I figure that'll come as I use it more.  For now, I post average of 2 questions a month - and I frequently get initial answers within 5 minutes.  Usually I've been toiling on something for a few hours, before I post.

When I post work-related problems, I change table names, server names, some of the variables - and remove code that is not specifically related to the problem.  That's probably a good idea for anyone else.

If you program professionally or for a hobby and you have not been to stackoverflow.com, do yourself a huge favor and give it a try.  I was a member for a few months, before I started using it in earnest.  It's fair to say that it's now among the most important tools I use.