Is there a language that does both what SQL does and general purpose programming?
Quote from AntC on November 30, 2020, 11:15 pmQuote from dandl on November 30, 2020, 10:08 amQuote from AntC on November 30, 2020, 12:36 am@dandl fighting a tide of morons trying to get someone else to do their homework or debug their programs.
Whether or not somebody's made a decent effort to answer a q for themselves, there is absolutely no excuse to call them a "moron". Yours is exactly the attitude that makes SO toxic. I feel revolted just having to reply to ask you to be civil. Please go back and change your post (then I'll change this).
...; my son .... His answers are excellent; his main complaint is there aren't enough people in his specialty asking good enough questions.
Over to you: what great question can you ask about the RA, that will attract a great answer and thousands of votes?
What puts me off StackOverflow is exactly toxic people like you. I see you haven't emended your offensive language; indeed you're doubling down on it.
Believe it or not I'm actually trying to help you understand how you could just possibly make a positive contribution to the greatest resource of programmer information this planet has ever seen.
My main participation these days is to try to counter the offense toxic people are causing, to encourage newbies to get a greater appreciation of the RM, and of why SQL is a corruption of it. Rather than their going away with the impression that the RA is the preserve of ivory-towered nerds who think themselves superior to anybody who has difficulties understanding it. Of course somebody who doesn't understand is unlikely to ask a "great question". They'll start off with a poorly-expressed question; answerers should start by working with them to improve it. Instead what happens is some moderator just closes/deletes it without explanation. Rude. Toxic. Very effective at ensuring people never ask again.
Emotive language like that helps no-one. No, they don't go away for long. They learn that SO is not going to do their homework for them, but they also learn that every time they search for an answer on Google the best answer is on SO. They come back, because they get answers (mostly, like my daughter, without actually having to ever ask a question). They come back because it works. I use it most days when I'm working in an unfamiliar area (which is often). I couldn't manage without it. SO is truly awesome, used properly.
Why on earth do you think there's any questions left that I would want to ask about the RA? You've managed to be both offensive and patronising. Why do I want votes? I get my self-esteem plenty of other places. A high vote-count seems to closely correlate with an unpleasant attitude.
Neither I nor SO care about what you 'want', we only care about your ability to contribute. You have a high IQ and highly specialised knowledge about the RA: so use that IQ to understand SO and contribute that knowledge for the benefit of others. I can think of several strategies you might adopt.
- Ask a Dorothy-Dixer. Ask a carefully constructed and useful question, so that you can provide the answer.
- Similar, but get someone from this forum to ask something you'd like to answer. I'd be happy to help.
- Lurk until you find a low quality question, and help massage it into shape. Then answer it.
- Similar, but lurk on the review queues, where it's easier to edit questions. For this one you need some rep.
- Watch for answers that really don't answer, and come in over the top with a far better answer. [This is mostly what I used to do to build rep.]
Or you can just give up, blame everyone else and leave the rest of us to muddle on. That would be a pity.
So actually over to you and your ilk: take your attitude elsewhere. That also applies to this forum. The best thing to improve SO from its current state (for database-y topics) is to preserve the old Q+As and otherwise shut it down.
Says nobody else.
Quote from dandl on November 30, 2020, 11:58 pm... ?
What puts me off StackOverflow is exactly toxic people like you. I see you haven't emended your offensive language; indeed you're doubling down on it.
Believe it or not I'm actually trying to help you understand how you could just possibly make a positive contribution to the greatest resource of programmer information this planet has ever seen.
StackOverflow seems to be the Marmite of Web sites, a love-it or hate-it thing. People either think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread1 or a dire cesspit of error and abuse. You almost never hear of anyone who's ambivalent about it. It would be interesting to know what characteristics are shared by those who view it one way or other other. Thus far, they haven't jumped out at me -- I'm not yet able to predict whether developers will be pro-StackOverflow or anti-StackOverflow until they express their opinion.2
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1 Or the greatest thing for sliced bread, to continue the Marmite metaphor...
2 BTW, I hate Marmite. Disgusting stuff.
Quote from Dave Voorhis on December 1, 2020, 12:14 pmQuote from dandl on November 30, 2020, 11:58 pm... ?
What puts me off StackOverflow is exactly toxic people like you. I see you haven't emended your offensive language; indeed you're doubling down on it.
Believe it or not I'm actually trying to help you understand how you could just possibly make a positive contribution to the greatest resource of programmer information this planet has ever seen.
StackOverflow seems to be the Marmite of Web sites, a love-it or hate-it thing. People either think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread1 or a dire cesspit of error and abuse. You almost never hear of anyone who's ambivalent about it. It would be interesting to know what characteristics are shared by those who view it one way or other other. Thus far, they haven't jumped out at me -- I'm not yet able to predict whether developers will be pro-StackOverflow or anti-StackOverflow until they express their opinion.2
It goes down to history. If all you do is Google and pick the top 3 hits you'll probably love it because they're all SO (YMMV). If you think it's there for asking a question when you get stuck you probably got hammered and hated the experience. My hit rate on asking questions is not much over 50% and I hate it too, but my hit rate on searching for answers is way higher. Used wisely it's right up there alongside Wikipedia for a repository of knowledge, and haters needs to realise that. [Which BTW is another place where the moderators can be pretty brutal.]
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1 Or the greatest thing for sliced bread, to continue the Marmite metaphor...
2 BTW, I hate Marmite. Disgusting stuff.
Try Vegemite, for an SO like experience in the black-stuff-on-bread stakes.
Quote from Dave Voorhis on December 1, 2020, 12:14 pmQuote from dandl on November 30, 2020, 11:58 pm... ?
StackOverflow seems to be the Marmite of Web sites, a love-it or hate-it thing. People either think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread1 or a dire cesspit of error and abuse. You almost never hear of anyone who's ambivalent about it. It would be interesting to know what characteristics are shared by those who view it one way or other other. Thus far, they haven't jumped out at me -- I'm not yet able to predict whether developers will be pro-StackOverflow or anti-StackOverflow until they express their opinion.2
I've been careful to say I'm talking of my experience with database-y topics. The Haskell community is a lot more friendly -- indeed I'd say they bend over backwards to answer newbies, when there's already plenty of answers for near-enough the same question; and nobody much works with questioners to improve the question first.
I think Haskell is unusual, though. I occasionally stray into other topics, the pedants and arseholes dominate.
Re 'shared characteristics', I acknowledge there's an archive of good answers. I don't agree with dandl it's the 'greatest resource' to find answers. Rather, it's a good place to get references to the best resources, or to get a superficial skim of a topic.
I also think the atmosphere has got worse in recent years. I guess that once there's an archive of good q+a, it's unlikely a newbie will come up with a genuinely new question. I suppose old hands get bored with pointing out that's a FAQ. But one of the things newbies are new at is how to search on SO, as well as the particular topic. What I find offensive is the manner of pointing out that's a FAQ: the eye-rolling, the language dandl has used here -- would he use that to anybody's face?
To be balanced: comp.database.theory was equally toxic. Perhaps it just took a few years for the pedants to realise there was a new opportunity to be an arsehole.
Quote from Darren Duncan on November 30, 2020, 1:12 amQuote from AntC on November 29, 2020, 10:52 pm
This is who deleted my post, Bhargav Rao from Bangalore: https://stackoverflow.com/users/4099593/bhargav-rao
Who's gained the points on Python, self-styled "amateur programmer", and appears to have no expertise on database-y topics. And yet they can go stomping on anybody's answer on any topic, it seems. And without explanation or apology.
Also now trying to monetise their SO presence "Less than 10k rep and have a great answer? Gimme the link & I'll try to offer a 50 point bounty! Have $3 to spare and wanna gift me something? Check out my wishlist on amazon."
Did I say toxic?
Quote from AntC on December 1, 2020, 8:18 pmQuote from Darren Duncan on November 30, 2020, 1:12 amQuote from AntC on November 29, 2020, 10:52 pmThis is who deleted my post, Bhargav Rao from Bangalore: https://stackoverflow.com/users/4099593/bhargav-rao
Who's gained the points on Python, self-styled "amateur programmer", and appears to have no expertise on database-y topics. And yet they can go stomping on anybody's answer on any topic, it seems. And without explanation or apology.
Also now trying to monetise their SO presence "Less than 10k rep and have a great answer? Gimme the link & I'll try to offer a 50 point bounty! Have $3 to spare and wanna gift me something? Check out my wishlist on amazon."
Did I say toxic?
Yeah, but... He rocks and is the best person on earth.
For my part, I appreciate StackOverflow generally because frequently when I'm trying to solve a development problem, whether I consider it common or obscure, the Google search results that actually are helpful to me are most frequently on StackOverflow due to someone having asked or answered with just what I needed to know.
Quote from Darren Duncan on December 1, 2020, 8:36 pmFor my part, I appreciate StackOverflow generally because frequently when I'm trying to solve a development problem, whether I consider it common or obscure, the Google search results that actually are helpful to me are most frequently on StackOverflow due to someone having asked or answered with just what I needed to know.
Just so. But I readily concede it varies by topic. I have found solutions for really knotty problems that rely on highly expert knowledge of Windows, C#/.NET, and other MS products, but failed to get answers to other topics (WPF geometry most recently) for no obvious reason. No, it's not a friendly chatty place for any topic but it is a unique resource for many.
I would not be at all happy for the guy who deleted your question to do that to me, based on what I can see of his knowledge and expertise. All I could suggest is try again, or if it doesn't really work as an answer, then submit it as a comment.
Quote from dandl on December 2, 2020, 12:54 amQuote from Darren Duncan on December 1, 2020, 8:36 pmFor my part, I appreciate StackOverflow generally because frequently when I'm trying to solve a development problem, whether I consider it common or obscure, the Google search results that actually are helpful to me are most frequently on StackOverflow due to someone having asked or answered with just what I needed to know.
Just so. But I readily concede it varies by topic. I have found solutions for really knotty problems that rely on highly expert knowledge of Windows, C#/.NET, and other MS products, but failed to get answers to other topics (WPF geometry most recently) for no obvious reason. No, it's not a friendly chatty place for any topic but it is a unique resource for many.
I would not be at all happy for the guy who deleted your question to do that to me, based on what I can see of his knowledge and expertise. All I could suggest is try again, or if it doesn't really work as an answer, then submit it as a comment.
- In recent memory the types of things I typically found StackOverflow useful for were in the context of specific languages such as Java where I was asking about how to do a specific thing with an API or what are good libraries to use or how to resolve a particular kind of exception and so on. But these were all things I wanted answers for now and I wasn't going to ask questions I just wanted to see what I could find out from searching what is already written.
- Thank you for pointing out the comment feature, I didn't notice it before, and yes that would have been the more appropriate way to mention my not-ready-yet project, I had thought everything was questions and answers, and threads were just answers to answers.
- That being said, I can't actually write comments yet since my reputation is under 50.
So, some good news. It appears that Jul, the original question asker, posted 7 hours ago to thank David for his answer, which is still up. Also he seemed to express interest in TTM and also named me for further follow up.