5 ms·

Introducing programmers.stackexchange.com

15 points by m3mb3r 16y ago

petercooper 16y ago
Giving an explanation is fine but even as a SO user, I don't "get" it. It's just splitting a strong StackOverflow down into weaker parts. Why not a separate Ruby SE? One for dynamic languages? One for questions that involve networking? That's what tags are for. Stated another way, the best Stack Overflow questions tend to have actual source code in the questions or answers. That may be generally true, but isn't my experience. Those SO posts that get voted up the most on sites like HN and Reddit have tended to not be source based. These sorts of posts, say: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/487258/plain-english-explanation-of-big-o/ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/487258/plain-english-expl... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do-emulators-work-and-how-are-they-written http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do-emulators-w...
- wladimir 16y ago
  I agree. Appears almost as if they are using divide and conquer tactics against their own user base. It used to be one large, easily searchable, interesting developer site now it is split into at least: - Programmers - AI - Gamedev ... As you can easily skip questions that don't interest you using keywords, I don't see the advantage of this...
- dagw 16y ago
  Stack exchange recently got a huge cash investment and now they have to justify getting all the money with a growing user base. However most new stack exchange sites that I've looked at are pretty dead and empty, so to me it looks like they are cannibalizing Stack Overflow to try to seed Stack Exchange sites with content so they can show positive numbers to their investors.
- j_baker 16y ago
  It's the age-old inclusionist vs deletionist battle. I think what they're trying to do is keep both sides happy by creating a vast network of sites with various purposes and then encouraging the deletionists to push questions to other sites rather than deleting them. Personally, I find it highly annoying but if it keeps interesting questions from getting closed then fine.
  - petercooper 16y ago
    In this case, there seems to be a subjective vs objective divide between the sites whereas the topics are the same (things like algorithms are mentioned explicitly in the good questions suggestions). Clearing that up in a way that satisifies even a minority will be tough and many will just end up scanning both sites (which is perhaps their goal, traffic wise).
- clojurerocks 16y ago
  Theres also the issue that the main site is like a one stop shop for all questions. Whereas the micro sites seem kind of pointless unless theres more to them. Like more ability to be social or something. Plus they all apparently have different designs which causes inconsistency and frankly headaches having to deal with all of it.
ghshephard 16y ago
Great new interface. Poor name for this new site, though, with a bit of work, I'm sure people will start to remember that: o Stack Overflow = Source Code Examples o Programmers = Essay questions about Software Development. I'm still bummed that "Networking" was considered to overlap with "Server Fault", and was therefore rejected as a group. I find it ironic that Webmasters, Wordpress, Unix, Ubuntu (all of which, actually _involve_ servers) are considered as not overlapping too much with Server Fault, but networking, a topic that is a discipline that, for many, will never involve working on a server, is considered to be a Dupe.
wanderr 16y ago
I really wish they would fix the reputation system so that it's not annoying or downright impossible to constructively use the site until you have a certain number of points. Barring that I'd settle for having my reputation carry over to related Stack Exchange sites. Until then I probably won't bother to use this one.
- SimonPStevens 16y ago
  "I'd settle for having my reputation carry over to related Stack Exchange sites." If you have more than 200 on one site, you get a boost of +100 when you link the account on a new site. (Maybe not enough for you, depends what you want to do, but I just thought I'd point it out in case you didn't know)
  - wanderr 16y ago
    I spent a bunch of reputation adding a bounty to a question without really thinking about how having a low reputation would send me back to restricted functionality. I haven't done much about building it back up once I got to the point where I could do reasonable things again. I must still be below 200 pts on stack overflow because I have 1 point on programmers.stackexchange.com.

15 points by m3mb3r 16y ago

Giving an explanation is fine but even as a SO user, I don't "get" it. It's just splitting a strong StackOverflow down into weaker parts. Why not a separate Ruby SE? One for dynamic languages? One for questions that involve networking? That's what tags are for. Stated another way, the best Stack Overflow questions tend to have actual source code in the questions or answers. That may be generally true, but isn't my experience. Those SO posts that get voted up the most on sites like HN and Reddit have tended to not be source based. These sorts of posts, say: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/487258/plain-english-explanation-of-big-o/ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/487258/plain-english-expl... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do-emulators-work-and-how-are-they-written http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do-emulators-w...

wladimir 16y ago
I agree. Appears almost as if they are using divide and conquer tactics against their own user base. It used to be one large, easily searchable, interesting developer site now it is split into at least: - Programmers - AI - Gamedev ... As you can easily skip questions that don't interest you using keywords, I don't see the advantage of this...
dagw 16y ago
Stack exchange recently got a huge cash investment and now they have to justify getting all the money with a growing user base. However most new stack exchange sites that I've looked at are pretty dead and empty, so to me it looks like they are cannibalizing Stack Overflow to try to seed Stack Exchange sites with content so they can show positive numbers to their investors.
j_baker 16y ago
It's the age-old inclusionist vs deletionist battle. I think what they're trying to do is keep both sides happy by creating a vast network of sites with various purposes and then encouraging the deletionists to push questions to other sites rather than deleting them. Personally, I find it highly annoying but if it keeps interesting questions from getting closed then fine.
- petercooper 16y ago
  In this case, there seems to be a subjective vs objective divide between the sites whereas the topics are the same (things like algorithms are mentioned explicitly in the good questions suggestions). Clearing that up in a way that satisifies even a minority will be tough and many will just end up scanning both sites (which is perhaps their goal, traffic wise).
clojurerocks 16y ago
Theres also the issue that the main site is like a one stop shop for all questions. Whereas the micro sites seem kind of pointless unless theres more to them. Like more ability to be social or something. Plus they all apparently have different designs which causes inconsistency and frankly headaches having to deal with all of it.

ghshephard 16y ago

Great new interface. Poor name for this new site, though, with a bit of work, I'm sure people will start to remember that: o Stack Overflow = Source Code Examples o Programmers = Essay questions about Software Development. I'm still bummed that "Networking" was considered to overlap with "Server Fault", and was therefore rejected as a group. I find it ironic that Webmasters, Wordpress, Unix, Ubuntu (all of which, actually _involve_ servers) are considered as not overlapping too much with Server Fault, but networking, a topic that is a discipline that, for many, will never involve working on a server, is considered to be a Dupe.

wanderr 16y ago

I really wish they would fix the reputation system so that it's not annoying or downright impossible to constructively use the site until you have a certain number of points. Barring that I'd settle for having my reputation carry over to related Stack Exchange sites. Until then I probably won't bother to use this one.

SimonPStevens 16y ago
"I'd settle for having my reputation carry over to related Stack Exchange sites." If you have more than 200 on one site, you get a boost of +100 when you link the account on a new site. (Maybe not enough for you, depends what you want to do, but I just thought I'd point it out in case you didn't know)
- wanderr 16y ago
  I spent a bunch of reputation adding a bounty to a question without really thinking about how having a low reputation would send me back to restricted functionality. I haven't done much about building it back up once I got to the point where I could do reasonable things again. I must still be below 200 pts on stack overflow because I have 1 point on programmers.stackexchange.com.