Software & Systems · Story 9

basedOnATrueStory

A meme on r/ProgrammerHumor titled basedOnATrueStory has garnered 28,518 points by satirising frustrating but familiar developer forum exchanges. The post highlights how help-seekers often receive dismissive or unhelpful replies instead of direct answers.

The thread exposes a persistent culture problem in developer communities where knowledge-sharing is undermined by gatekeeping and unhelpful shortcuts. This can discourage newcomers and waste time in an industry that relies on collaborative problem-solving.

Key details

• The post on r/ProgrammerHumor received 28,518 upvotes and 489 comments.
• The top comment (5,842 upvotes) mimics a common forum response: Marked as duplicate. Here is the answer from 2010 in JQuery.
• Another top comment jokes about the advice How do I do A? — Don't. Problem solved, receiving 2,321 upvotes.
• A commenter notes the familiar pattern of an answer that doesn't actually address the question: I know it doesn't answer the question but here’s my solution in <<framework.
• The fourth-highest comment (1,232 upvotes) references the dismissive Nobody does A remark, warning it's famous last words before inheriting a legacy codebase.

Discussion angles

• Commenters mock the practice of marking questions as duplicates of unrelated threads, represented by the [CLOSED: marked as duplicate (totally unrelated question)] reply.
• The thread critiques how forum veterans often link to outdated solutions, such as JQuery answers from 2010, rather than addressing the current problem.
• A recurring theme is the dismissive Don't. advice given to legitimate technical questions.
• Several comments highlight the irony of developers saying nobody does something, only to later inherit systems that do exactly that.
• The discussion underscores a mismatch between the original ask and the offered solution, a frequent pain point in technical Q&A.