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FAQ: "if your question generally covers … a specific programming problem a software algorithm software tools commonly used by programmers practical, answerabl

by ximeng 14y ago

FAQ: "if your question generally covers … a specific programming problem a software algorithm software tools commonly used by programmers practical, answerable problems that are unique to the programming profession … then you’re in the right place to ask your question! show more What kind of questions should I not ask here? You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face." This is practical, answerable, an actual problem someone has faced (presumably for a programming interview), to do with a software algorithm, specific, and unique to the programming profession (otherwise why would you specify 2^63-1 as a limit?!). How on earth is this "definitely without a doubt, not on topic to SO"? Why would "Progamming Language Pragmatics" be cited as a reference if this was not a programming problem? The comments in the meta thread are also unhelpful - "True, I would close it as not a real question. Because it is the text literally copied from the interview question whitout any effort to change it into a question and without any effort to solve it". I'm with btilly, these guys should put more time into answers and less into meta-answers, if I were treated like him I'd be looking for the door as well: why would he want to spend his time convincing these people a clearly useful question and answer should be on this site?

batista 14y ago
>This is practical, answerable, an actual problem someone has faced (presumably for a programming interview sorry but, "faced at an interview" is far from "actual problems that you face". Interviews contain all kind of junk, abstact and bs questions...
- ximeng 14y ago
  This question is not "junk, abstact and bs", it's concrete though terse, and substantial. It is also clearly a problem he's faced. Perhaps the fact that he's not hit this issue while producing a product or experiencing this problem in everyday working life is the concern? Or lack of generality? In any case this is within a reasonable interpretation of the guidelines, and as Jeff points out in this thread, within the spirit of what he intended for the site. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabin%E2%80%93Karp_algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabin%E2%80%93Karp_algorithm shows serious research into a similar problem. It is depressing that useful questions and answers like this are judged on whether they are homework or interview questions, not on the quality of the response. The discussion on meta shows no appreciation of the quality of btilly's contributions to the site. I'm not surprised he's leaving, and I agree StackOverflow will be worse without his answers. What do you think?
  - batista 14y ago
    >The discussion on meta shows no appreciation of the quality of btilly's contributions to the site. I'm not surprised he's leaving, and I agree StackOverflow will be worse without his answers. What do you think? It's not about the "quality of the contributions", it's about their appropriateness. If a great chef goes to a Burger King and starts making his own stuff when asked for a burger, he might make very high quality stuff, but that doesn't mean he wont be fired. Same here, there might be "serious research into a similar problem", but that doesn't mean it's appropriate for Stack Overflow. They want more of the "I face this particular problem in my project" type of stuff. Practical things, like, e.g "how can I store a blob into Oracle from Python" or "why does this html5 canvas project get a low framerate".
    - btilly 14y ago
      I love how you use the impersonal "they". Who would that actually be? The actual users of the site? No, they voted it up. The founders of the site? No, Jeff Atwood in this very discussion said that he thought it was on topic. No, the "they" in question seem to be the people who hang out on meta, and who spend a serious fraction of their time agreeing on and enforcing rules against everyone else. Perhaps if "they" stopped to ask whether they should be acting in a way that is not wanted by users, at least one founder, and which drives away contributers, then they might act differently. Seriously, when you're applying a FAQ and come to the opposite conclusion from the people who wrote it, something is wrong.

by ximeng 14y ago

batista 14y ago

>This is practical, answerable, an actual problem someone has faced (presumably for a programming interview sorry but, "faced at an interview" is far from "actual problems that you face". Interviews contain all kind of junk, abstact and bs questions...

ximeng 14y ago
This question is not "junk, abstact and bs", it's concrete though terse, and substantial. It is also clearly a problem he's faced. Perhaps the fact that he's not hit this issue while producing a product or experiencing this problem in everyday working life is the concern? Or lack of generality? In any case this is within a reasonable interpretation of the guidelines, and as Jeff points out in this thread, within the spirit of what he intended for the site. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabin%E2%80%93Karp_algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabin%E2%80%93Karp_algorithm shows serious research into a similar problem. It is depressing that useful questions and answers like this are judged on whether they are homework or interview questions, not on the quality of the response. The discussion on meta shows no appreciation of the quality of btilly's contributions to the site. I'm not surprised he's leaving, and I agree StackOverflow will be worse without his answers. What do you think?
- batista 14y ago
  >The discussion on meta shows no appreciation of the quality of btilly's contributions to the site. I'm not surprised he's leaving, and I agree StackOverflow will be worse without his answers. What do you think? It's not about the "quality of the contributions", it's about their appropriateness. If a great chef goes to a Burger King and starts making his own stuff when asked for a burger, he might make very high quality stuff, but that doesn't mean he wont be fired. Same here, there might be "serious research into a similar problem", but that doesn't mean it's appropriate for Stack Overflow. They want more of the "I face this particular problem in my project" type of stuff. Practical things, like, e.g "how can I store a blob into Oracle from Python" or "why does this html5 canvas project get a low framerate".
  - btilly 14y ago
    I love how you use the impersonal "they". Who would that actually be? The actual users of the site? No, they voted it up. The founders of the site? No, Jeff Atwood in this very discussion said that he thought it was on topic. No, the "they" in question seem to be the people who hang out on meta, and who spend a serious fraction of their time agreeing on and enforcing rules against everyone else. Perhaps if "they" stopped to ask whether they should be acting in a way that is not wanted by users, at least one founder, and which drives away contributers, then they might act differently. Seriously, when you're applying a FAQ and come to the opposite conclusion from the people who wrote it, something is wrong.