I'm a beginner and probably won't be insulting to beginners. Although, that also means I may not have things to say that are actually helpful. Suppose you have to pick which is worse.

I couldn't agree with you more on the attitude of SO, as they can be pretty horrible if they feel it. Before discovering this kick ass site, I would / could be found in the Experts Exchange community, and I learned tons about dev work through asking/answering questions on there, and most folks are amazingly kind, but there's always a chance you'll run into an a-hole.

I also think one of the bigger difference is HashNode doesn't really focus on "gamification" of the site (such as getting points) or badges or whatever, and they focus more on general info rather than specific Q&A scenarios.

To summarize, I think HN is more focused on community and general overall discussions on whatever technology, while other forums are for specific topics.

Answers change. StackOverflow doesn't allow them to.

Easily, half of my search results landed on pages that had the proper answer ranked way below what was accepted... which to me, is unacceptable.

In an industry that constantly changes and evolves, StackOverflow has become a huge stack of bologna.

Hashnode is fairly young. Things can change as we slowly create the content (in the form of discussions, stories, etc.) for them, as users. However, there seems to be a very close relationship between Team Hashnode and the average user - which I really do appreciate.

I'm looking forward to watching it, and helping it, grow as a community.

Whilst there is a decidedly different vibe here, I do think you have to ask yourself if you are taking people's advice the wrong way. Are they being insulting to YOU or are they being insulting to outdated, outmoded, broken methods you've been learning from bad sources.

Online there's a lot of just plain web rot. Broken garbage methodology that when people who've been doing this for anything length of time see it being done, are going to knee-jerk into "WHY the *** is this still even being taught?!?" --- then it's like "oh, nube predating scam artist BS like W3Schools, that's why!"

From halfwit shortcuts like jquery, to bloated broken garbage like bootcrap that defeats the entire point of HTML and why CSS is separate from it, to major accessibility failings so common to a lack of many tutorials even teaching you what the HTML tags ACTUALLY MEAN, there's a LOT that we as a whole NEED to be insulting about to drive beginners away from them. Blowing smoke up people's backsides and patting them on the back with soothing-syrup words is NOT helping!

If someone is using insulting language is it directed AT YOU. Are they ACTUALLY trying to help? Are they explaining WHY they are saying the things they are saying?

... and that's my problem with Stack Overflow and many other forums, people will do one-liner drive-by posts like a bunch of mentally enfeebled half-tweets without explaining WHY.

INTENT, that's what you need to look for! The REALLY GOOD programmers tend to be brusque, frank, and not take the time to sugar coat things. The language used may be colourful, but that is because they are trying to HELP. You should be more concerned with the turds who are using soft-language to slap the rose coloured glasses on your head, leading you down the garden path to failure, where everyone is singing kumbaya around the drum circle where the unicorn is farting rainbows -- since universally such folks (see "sitepoint") are looking for a new batch of suckups and sycophants to sell something (like their latest reprint of decade out of date books) to you. Hence why people who DARE to criticize anything -- regardless of the language used -- aren't welcome there.

Look at WHAT is being said, not the language.

That said, one of the biggest problems I have across various sites are the people who do things like say "google it" -- as if you haven't tried. If you're a beginner you might not even know the right terminology to type into a search engine to get a result! Likewise you'll often get the clowns who will say something vague in one sentence and then somehow expect everyone else to be mind readers and have some idea what they meant. I haven't seen either of those here yet.

That and this place seems to have far less TLDR mouth-breathers screaming "aah, wall of text!?!" like a bunch of illiterate five-year-olds. JOE FORBID you try to explain anything or hold an adult conversation.

But to be fair, I seem to have entirely different definitions of "respect" and "insulting" compared to most people online. You'd almost think I was from New England. Where plattitudes and fake smiles at best garner distrust, at worst a fist in the face. Where sardonic wit and the backhanded compliment is as common as your morning Dunkin's run. Where "Yah cahnt geht theyah frum heeyah" isn't a catchphrase, it's a way of life.

Respect must be earned, not automatically handed out like participation trophies.

--- slams full coffee across your windshield -- Go back to Starbucks!

To that end, do NOT take offense to anything I tell you as my INTENT is to help. If anything I say is colourful or can be misconstrued as insulting just remember I'm trying to emphasize how what you have learned elsewhere is broken, and I'm TRYING to show you better ways of doing things.

... and that's the REAL difference IMHO you need to look for. ARE THEY TRYING TO HELP? Yes or No? If no, THEN go ahead and feel insulted. If yes, then the problem is you, not them.

If I'm curt with you it's because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast and I need you guys to act fast if you wanna get out of this. So, pretty please... with sugar on top. Clean the ****ing car.

-- Winston Wolf

I can’t say the same about Stack Overflow, but the Hashnode community is definitely more friendly.

SO members sacrifice friendliness for the pretense of professionalism: many of them think if they want to look professional they have to stay dry and objective (being objective, however, is written in the SO policy).

On the other hand, Hashnode is “the Quora of developers”, and as such, allows (encourages) members to be subjective.

And people who are allowed to be subjective are usually friendlier.

To shine some light: many programmers are self taught which includes thousands of hours scouring through documentation and stack overflow past questions. There is a 99% chance that your stack overflow questions have previously been asked and answered in different forms, and so searching through results is faster and ALSO prevents similar questions from being added to the archives of questions. People get snarky because the more repetition in questions, the harder it is to find a solid and full response through searching the SO archives. YES they are rude af sometimes and YES hashnode is better in that regard, but there is a reason for the SO rudeness - to kind of pressure you into taking a more independent approach to problem solving. In the end, that is more useful to you as a dev than having your question answered because you will never have time to post a q and await a response on stack overflow when you are working on a project.

When i look back to my experience with this community is "Expressive in terms of replying your answer and Active in term so responding to any questions". And better you should also raise some question and test the experience. William Egan

The community is usually very welcoming and open-minded. Only questions without context are highly likely to remain unanswered.

I recommend to try out Hashnode :-)

Yes, it's not insulting here and I also gave up on SO due to their rude behavior.