5 ms·

Google App Engine community support is moving to Stack Overflow

77 points by chhantyal 14y ago

chhantyal 14y ago
Google group thread is ugly, code is not highlighted. This move will make life easier.
- skeletonjelly 14y ago
  Most importantly, I can't upvote things!
  - abraham 14y ago
    The newer Groups have up/down votes for questions. It looks like GAE group doesn't have them enabled. You can see it on the Google+ group. https://groups.google.com/d/topic/google-plus-developers/JBF8_mKiJXU/discussion https://groups.google.com/d/topic/google-plus-developers/JBF...
- abraham 14y ago
  Groups has code highlighting but you have to use the web interface. https://support.google.com/groups/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1050526 https://support.google.com/groups/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...
  - chhantyal 14y ago
    Ah ok, now StackOverflow is trend/standard of Q&A. We know how to use it and don't want spend few minutes to know how to highlight code or upvote post on google groups.
peterknego 14y ago
How is this news? It's been announced March 23rd. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/google-appengine/stack$20overflow/google-appengine/aG1R_Kzj8jA/GVCveoYAF-wJ https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/google...
jorgem 14y ago
Sounds like they are going directly into the StackOverflow database. If not, Google should reconsider. A lot of people got screwed when StackExchange dropped support for custom "stack exchanges" a few years ago.
- rmc 14y ago
  There are still custom, thematic stack exchanges.
  - johansch 14y ago
    Based on their own judgement on what is popular or not, in the "community".
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      I'm pretty sure they'll accept payment to host an unpopular private site.
      - HoLyVieR 14y ago
        They used to, but now they don't. You can see their official answer here : http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/83591/how-to-run-a-private-stack-exchange-like-site/83682#83682 http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/83591/how-to-run-a-p...
        jessriedel 14y ago
        Why is that? Why wouldn't they take the money if someone wants to license their software and host a private Q&A site? The FAQ doesn't give a reason.
        _ikke_ 14y ago
        Because they believe a good community is part of the success of a stackexchange site. By allowing people to artificial keep up a topic site, the chance is big you'll create 'ghost towns' where there's nobody to answer questions, which would be detrimental to the users experience. That's why they enforce people to incubate a topic site and only allow it to go through if it's substantial enough.
rbanffy 14y ago
Again?!
tbatterii 14y ago
They would probably never say this publicly but I will speculate... The move is meant to move those(the majority) who would rather send an email off rather than do their own research, or read the docs, to a more appropriate forum. And google employees can beef up their SO reps for answering the same questions over and over again. There's no incentive in answering most of those kinds of questions on a mailing list. And email is easy to ignore.
indubitably 14y ago
If Google buys SO it will suck.
maeon3 14y ago
Google beat by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky of Stack overflow in community support? I believe it, Stack overflow is the news.ycombinator of community programming help. I've been listening to Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood's podcasts and frankly, they are the best podcast I've ever listened to. Insightful, funny, creative, enlightening. I've burned the mp3's to CD's for easy listening in the car. All programmers should listen to all of these. http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/podcasts/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/podcasts/
- rbanffy 14y ago
  My only complain is the episodes are too long for my commute. I catch their podcast via the IT Conversations aggregator: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/ http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/ Very worth listening (and easy to subscribe)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
factorialboy 14y ago
Does this move by any chance mean that Google is slowly giving up on Google Groups?
- Flenser 14y ago
  No, it's users giving up using forums for Q&A.
jaredsohn 14y ago
Google is doing the same for Chrome extension development (http://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/group/chromium-extensions/browse_thread/thread/94dc6552a173f2da?pli=1 http://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/group/chromium-exten...).
nikcub 14y ago
even before they made the switch official the AppEngine devs were active SO users and the site had become an unofficial knowledge base for the product.

77 points by chhantyal 14y ago

chhantyal 14y ago

Google group thread is ugly, code is not highlighted. This move will make life easier.

skeletonjelly 14y ago
Most importantly, I can't upvote things!
- abraham 14y ago
  The newer Groups have up/down votes for questions. It looks like GAE group doesn't have them enabled. You can see it on the Google+ group. https://groups.google.com/d/topic/google-plus-developers/JBF8_mKiJXU/discussion https://groups.google.com/d/topic/google-plus-developers/JBF...
abraham 14y ago
Groups has code highlighting but you have to use the web interface. https://support.google.com/groups/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1050526 https://support.google.com/groups/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...
- chhantyal 14y ago
  Ah ok, now StackOverflow is trend/standard of Q&A. We know how to use it and don't want spend few minutes to know how to highlight code or upvote post on google groups.

peterknego 14y ago

How is this news? It's been announced March 23rd. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/google-appengine/stack$20overflow/google-appengine/aG1R_Kzj8jA/GVCveoYAF-wJ https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/google...

jorgem 14y ago

Sounds like they are going directly into the StackOverflow database. If not, Google should reconsider. A lot of people got screwed when StackExchange dropped support for custom "stack exchanges" a few years ago.

rmc 14y ago
There are still custom, thematic stack exchanges.
- johansch 14y ago
  Based on their own judgement on what is popular or not, in the "community".
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    I'm pretty sure they'll accept payment to host an unpopular private site.
    - HoLyVieR 14y ago
      They used to, but now they don't. You can see their official answer here : http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/83591/how-to-run-a-private-stack-exchange-like-site/83682#83682 http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/83591/how-to-run-a-p...
      - jessriedel 14y ago
        Why is that? Why wouldn't they take the money if someone wants to license their software and host a private Q&A site? The FAQ doesn't give a reason.
        _ikke_ 14y ago
        Because they believe a good community is part of the success of a stackexchange site. By allowing people to artificial keep up a topic site, the chance is big you'll create 'ghost towns' where there's nobody to answer questions, which would be detrimental to the users experience. That's why they enforce people to incubate a topic site and only allow it to go through if it's substantial enough.

rbanffy 14y ago

Again?!

tbatterii 14y ago

They would probably never say this publicly but I will speculate... The move is meant to move those(the majority) who would rather send an email off rather than do their own research, or read the docs, to a more appropriate forum. And google employees can beef up their SO reps for answering the same questions over and over again. There's no incentive in answering most of those kinds of questions on a mailing list. And email is easy to ignore.

indubitably 14y ago

If Google buys SO it will suck.

maeon3 14y ago

Google beat by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky of Stack overflow in community support? I believe it, Stack overflow is the news.ycombinator of community programming help. I've been listening to Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood's podcasts and frankly, they are the best podcast I've ever listened to. Insightful, funny, creative, enlightening. I've burned the mp3's to CD's for easy listening in the car. All programmers should listen to all of these. http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/podcasts/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/podcasts/

rbanffy 14y ago
My only complain is the episodes are too long for my commute. I catch their podcast via the IT Conversations aggregator: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/ http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/ Very worth listening (and easy to subscribe)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

factorialboy 14y ago

Does this move by any chance mean that Google is slowly giving up on Google Groups?

Flenser 14y ago
No, it's users giving up using forums for Q&A.

jaredsohn 14y ago

Google is doing the same for Chrome extension development (http://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/group/chromium-extensions/browse_thread/thread/94dc6552a173f2da?pli=1 http://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/group/chromium-exten...).

nikcub 14y ago

even before they made the switch official the AppEngine devs were active SO users and the site had become an unofficial knowledge base for the product.