Stack Overflow Walked, So AI Could Run

For years, Stack Overflow has been a vital tool in every developer's stack. From small to big questions, Stack Overflow has been the biggest ally for developers worldwide.

It may not always provide the exact answer but along with official documentation, Stack Overflow has guided countless developers toward the right solutions.

During my software engineering days, I used to use Stack Overflow extensively. Last week, I sat down to clear my browser's bookmarks. I found over 50 saved Stack Overflow and tech blog links, each representing a different challenge I had once faced. In the end, I deleted the entire folder.

I might still need answers to some of these questions. But now I can just paste my code into Claude or ChatGPT, and it will generate the exact snippet I need, with the correct variable names, explanations, and even optimized approaches. Unlike SO, these AI tools won’t just guide me to the answer but give me the exact answer, customized to my context.

The Fall of a Giant

For years, Stack Overflow was the most trusted adviser for developers. It was the ultimate developer community—a place built for developers, by developers.

But AI has changed everything.

As a Product Manager, in the last few years, I've drifted away from active coding. I still tweak CSS or small code snippets for personal projects or occasionally make a commit at Wobot, but hardly once a month. This also means I’ve fallen out of sync with the latest advancements in programming languages and frameworks. And reading documentation and debugging code as an occasional coder is not always the easiest task.

But then came ChatGPT, and now Sonnet, which became the ultimate hack to get back into coding. I can prompt AI to generate complete files, build small apps, update logic in existing code, or even explain concepts in seconds. I can’t even remember the last time I visited Stack Overflow to troubleshoot an issue or even Googled it, for that matter.

The AI Takeover

On talking to developers on my team and among friends, pretty much everyone mentioned ChatGPT or Sonnet as their go-to tool whenever they need to debug or optimize something. Many now also use Cursor as their IDE, generating more and more code via AI.

These AI tools have forever changed the development landscape. The effect isn't limited to just Stack Overflow—all tech blogs, sites, or forums that once dominated the development landscape are likely fading into the shadows.

Can Stack Overflow Survive?

Stack Overflow could introduce a chatbot to make it easier to find answers or troubleshoot, but most LLMs have likely already been trained on parts of its dataset. Stack Overflow could still have an uperhand when it comes to newer technologies or latest vesions, whose knowledge might still not be up-to-date in AI tool's dataset.

In the long term, AI tools and their new-gen wrappers will eventually catch up. With people are already using ChatGPT or Claude for most of their other tasks, Stack Overflow will find it difficult to be part of developer's daily routine or to create a moat.

This makes me a bit nostalgic, as once the great hero fades into the shadows. I wonder if any other developer tool can come and replace it. But there is a new king in town called AI, and it does not take any prisoners.