stackoverflow - 10k rep

I've finally crossed the 10k reputation milestone on stackoverflow! I thought I'd take this opportunity to reflect back on my time as a member of this famous programming Q & A site.

Even though I was one of the first people to join stackoverflow when the beta version came out two years ago, I did not become an active participant until much more recently. I have found this site to be a great way of helping people with programming difficulties and also as a great learning resource. During my time here, I have:

• answered 546 questions
• asked 46 questions
• participated across 609 tags (mainly java, unix, bash and xml)
• received 35 badges - 2 gold, 10 silver and 23 bronze

I have really enjoyed being a member of stackoverflow. For me, it has not simply been a quest for a high reputation, but more about learning new technologies and picking up advice from other experts on the site. I like to take on challenging questions, rather than the easy ones, because it pushes me to do research into areas I have never looked at before, and I learn so much during the process. As a result, I have dabbled with certain libraries that I haven't used before, such as Apache Lucene.

It's hard juggling work and stackoverflow. The only times I get to use it are during the weekends and in the evenings after work. Most of the questions have already been answered by then! However, I still like browsing the questions and checking out the answers.

Anyway, I need to get back to it now. Let's see how fast I can make it to 20k!