Ryan Donovan, Stack Overflow Blog

stackoverflowknows December 20, 2019

This Week #StackOverflowKnows Magic Constants, Using the Force, and Paper Maps

Once again, it’s time for our bi-weekly roundup of questions that caught our eyes. But we’re not the only eyes out there. So give attention to a great question and/or answer by tweeting it with the tag #StackOverflowKnows and we’ll consider them for future installments of this series. Where do “magic” hashing constants like 0x9e3779b9…

Ryan Donovan

December 12, 2019

Last minute gift ideas for the programmer in your life

Did you, like me, wait until the last minute to buy holiday gifts for your programmer friends? Maybe we can help. We asked our engineering team what gifts they like and would appreciate receiving. We’re publishing their responses in full below in the hopes that you can find inspiration for your upcoming holiday gift frenzy…

Ryan Donovan

stackoverflowknows December 6, 2019

This Week #StackOverflowKnows About Infinity, Internet-Speak, and Password Storage

We’re introducing this bi-weekly roundup of questions from around the network with the tag #StackOverflowKnows. Share yours on twitter.

Ryan Donovan

code-for-a-living December 2, 2019

Preventing the Top Security Weaknesses Found in Stack Overflow Code Snippets

Last week, we told you about research that found a number of security vulnerabilities in code snippets in Stack Overflow answers, and how some of those flaws had migrated into actual, real-live Github projects. Today, we’re following up on the top eight error types that research highlighted and suggesting ways to avoid making the same mistakes.

Ryan Donovan

code-for-a-living November 26, 2019

Copying code from Stack Overflow? You might paste security vulnerabilities, too

Copying code itself isn’t always a bad thing. Code reuse can promote efficiency in software development; why solve a problem that has already been solved well? But when the developers use example code without trying to understand the implications of it, that’s when problems can arise.

Ryan Donovan

code-for-a-living November 18, 2019

The Interactive News Platform for Everyone

Journalists have an uneasy relationship with technology. On one hand, journalism at the highest levels still focuses on print distribution, a technology hundreds of years old. On the other hand, even the Gray Lady has a snazzy mobile app and stories custom made for virtual reality. Traditional news outlets are increasingly discovering the power of…

Ryan Donovan

code-for-a-living November 7, 2019

Looking to understand which API is best for a certain task? A new study uses Stack Overflow data to rank them

But if you could collect and analyze the opinions posted within the comments and questions, you could start to get a bead on the aggregate sentiment, sort of a Yelp for technology. That’s just what Gias Uddin, now a Senior Data Scientist at the Bank of Canada, looked at for his PhD thesis at McGill University. Along with his PhD supervisor, Foutse Khomh, Associate Professor at Polytechnique Montréal, determined a method to mine opinions on APIs and libraries from questions and comments posted on Stack Overflow.

Ryan Donovan