The Flying Jalapeño Lives

Until recently I have been, for lack of a better work, selfish in my use of Stack Overflow. I asked many questions, but but gave few answers. I was a good citizen in that I at least searched for answers before I posted a new question. If i did post an answer, It was usually in response to my own questions.

For the past few weeks, my routine has been quite the opposite. I answer as many questions as time allows. To better keep up on the latest questions, I keep a RSS feed of Stack Overflow tags “iPhone” and “iPhone SDK” in Safari’s bookmark bar.

I was reluctant to answer questions because of my (perceived) lack of knowledge. I have since discovered that I am able to help much more often than I thought. It feels good to contribute to the community that has helped me so much.

Even better, answering questions helps me more than asking them. Thinking through the problems of others allows me evaluate my skill set and identify any non-obvious holes in my knowledge.

I highly encourage everyone to get involved in the community. Even if you’re a beginner, you will find you know more than you think. It will only help you improve your problem solving skills and make a few friends in the process.

If you have any Cocoa touch or Objective-C questions, don’t just limit yourself to Apple’s Dev Forums. There is a thriving community of Cocoa developers on Stack Overflow at your disposal.

You will find a variety of questions from novice to advanced. Stack Overflow has a policy of “no stupid questions”. Which means you won’t get attacked for asking a “easy” question. Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky stated on their podcast (which is also phenomenal by the way) that they want to be like a programming “Wikipedia”. That is why the like and encourage all levels of questions.

Go to Stack Overflow and start posting, commenting, browsing, and, of course, as answering many questions as you can.