#REDDIT LITTLE DEVIL INSIDE CODE#

If I couldn't use `site:` syntax on DDG or Yandex, I'd probably go directly to Reddit's own search engine a lot of times. An equivalent search across all sites on a search engine usually leads to long treatises with little value appearing first above the fold. If I want to know why people are choosing a particular programming language, for instance, I can do `site: why use c++` and actually get some concise and even nuanced opinions. The usual blog type content doesn't last long in most Reddit communities without becoming substantially downvoted. Reddit has many issues, but at least it's still a useful place to find opinions that are also openly tested against their respective subcommunities. YouTube was once a fairly decent place to hear opinions but, like with regular search, it's currently optimized for the equivalent of low-effort blog posts: videos that are ~12 minutes long with little valuable information. Sites like Quora make it too easy for someone to insert their opinion without it being adequately tested in the public space. Crappy GPT-2 generated blogs have overwhelmed the ability of search engines to surface human generated blogs, and even the human ones are often clearly just someone's hour of research on a topic with the conclusion being 'decide for yourself'. Search engines have become really bad at surfacing genuine opinions.

While I do that a lot, when getting started with something, an initial opinion to go on is very useful. I don't have time to weigh all the facts about something and make my own decision. Reddit doesn't replace all of search, but for me it does effectively replace search engines when I'm looking for an opinion. Reddit wouldn't replace my Google any time soon, even if it built a better search engine. Search isn't homogeneous, and, while I have noticed declining quality in a few areas I search frequently, those areas almost never overlap with my Reddit-specific search areas. That's why I find both this response and the original so bizarre in their thesis. I just don't think that's what Reddit's for. I would almost certainly never solicit medical advice from Reddit, or type in a new term I'd heard to get all the information about it, or try to shop for things from Reddit links. I would never search for 'restaurants near me' on Reddit.

#REDDIT LITTLE DEVIL INSIDE CODE#

I would never do a code search on Reddit. In those cases, the community aspect mattered to me - for example, I recently moved to Boston, so I solicited Bostonian's recommendations from r/boston my partner and I were having troubles, and I wanted to hear from people who'd gone through similar experiences I wanted to learn about compiler construction and went looking for other smart folks who were interested in the same topic. I've searched for Reddit in the past because Reddit is the only site where I can get community answers to an important question.

Reddit little devil inside