If you have survived through college doing anything remotely related to computer programming then you must have heard of Stack Overflow; the online community that comprises expert programmers, code enthusiasts, script kiddies and downright noobs.
It’s a question and answer type of community. Think Quora or Yahoo Questions (do it even still exist?) but entirely dedicated to matters code/programming.
So popular is the platform that in its annual survey report last year, Stack Overflow reported that, “Every 8 seconds or so, a developer asks a question on Stack Overflow.”
In 2016, over 56,000 developers were surveyed by Stack Overflow and reported to be regularly engaging on the platform with other members of the community either by asking questions, responding to questions with answers or sharing their expertise.
In 2017, that number rose to 64,000. Yes, a gathering of over 64,000 nerds. What could go wrong?
Sadly, in a mobile-first world, Stack Overflow has not had its own mobile apps. It has had to rely on an app created by its mother company, Stack Exchange, that also provides access to other Stack Exchange properties (over 170 of them) like the travel section that I like to visit before making any visa application or travelling to a new place.
Going forward, that won’t be the case as there is now a standalone Stack Overflow app designed from the ground up with the Stack Overflow user in mind (and, in their own words, launched “in honour of Google I/O“).
From the app, users can do pretty much everything they can do on the Stack Overflow portal. View, answer, post and vote. Just like they would on the main Stack Exchange app but without the risk of being distracted and veering off to a sub-thread discussing Boeing’s latest planes in another community as is often the case with me.
Like the Stack Exchange app, the new Stack Overflow app will also send push notifications to users when there’s some interaction on their activities.
This should bode well for the increasing number of users turning to Stack Overflow to ask Android-related queries.
According to The State of Mobile Development with Stack Overflow report, 8% of the questions asked on Stack Overflow as of this year are Android-related as users try to figure out how to program for the world’s most popular mobile platform using its various tools like the Android Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that Google released 4 years ago.
At Google I/O 2017, Google announced the first preview of version 3 of Android Studio which means that even more users will be flocking to Stack Overflow with all sorts of questions. Thankfully, this time round, they won’t have to reach for their browser to do so.
You can download the Stack Overflow app from the Play Store.
