There was a time when computer programming was more an art than a science. I am talking about the times of Cobol, basic, gw-basic, q-basic and so many languages.

Right now programming is elsewhere and new products appear everyday, so you need to have a tremendous base knowledge in order to solve complex issues. Abstraction works only at the beginning, when issues, problems, and stacktraces appear you need to know what the hell you are coding and executing.

The matter with stackoverflow.com, public forums and mailing lists is this: incompatibility to solve this complex issues with social networking. I will put it simple: If you have a serious, corporate bound, programming or server related issue, don’t ever make it public, because you may lose your job and your competitors will wipe you out.

Now go ahead and try to share your problem with the world on the Internet, at your own risk, because it is amazing how much private and critical information programmers are putting in the forums (to be continued).