The Articles section...
closed account (z05DSL3A)
I have just had a look at the articles section[1] of the site and there doesn't seem to be anything posted for a few years.
Is this just that people have stopped writing them or has something gone wrong and the section has died a death?
And what is with
when you create a new post and heavens forbid try to add formatting to it.
Edited to add formatting. ;0)
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[1] http://www.cplusplus.com/articles/
Is this just that people have stopped writing them or has something gone wrong and the section has died a death?
And what is with
ERROR
Invalid form (for-NT33)
Invalid form (for-NT33)
when you create a new post and heavens forbid try to add formatting to it.
Edited to add formatting. ;0)
_____________________________________________________
[1] http://www.cplusplus.com/articles/
Last edited on
I don't write very many articles (I can count on one hand the number I've written), but I have friends that do, and just struggle to think of topics to write about. Perhaps people can post articles they would like to see in here, and someone will pick it up.
I personally think it suffers from two problems:
• Everyman Is An Expert Syndrome
• Not Google Syndrome
The plethora of Articles, varying quality, and difficulty looking through them for what you want all contribute to something that is unwieldly for diminishing return.
I’ve written a few articles myself, and I am not very happy with them as they are...
Honestly, I don’t think twicker has much time to devote to the site anymore. Part of the point of asking some of us to do some stuff for him... but I haven’t had time to actually make the FAQ anything close to awesome (right now it’s a mess) for a long time now... I can’t even find my own articles unless I sign in.
• Everyman Is An Expert Syndrome
• Not Google Syndrome
The plethora of Articles, varying quality, and difficulty looking through them for what you want all contribute to something that is unwieldly for diminishing return.
I’ve written a few articles myself, and I am not very happy with them as they are...
Honestly, I don’t think twicker has much time to devote to the site anymore. Part of the point of asking some of us to do some stuff for him... but I haven’t had time to actually make the FAQ anything close to awesome (right now it’s a mess) for a long time now... I can’t even find my own articles unless I sign in.
closed account (z05DSL3A)
I'm not really one to claim to be an expert or anything but I sometimes find that writing about a subject helps me learn it and understand it. I have got a few projects lined up around SDR, IoT, and UWP so I might be writing tech notes to get my head around things.
That’s where I think a little differently, but you’re not alone in that way of considering it. The problem, I think, is how people go about it. And, frankly, the quality the player brings to the table.
A lot of howto and tutorial articles appear on the internet by people who had just learned something and wanted to share. There’s even a website devoted to exactly that (...that orange site I can’t remember the name of right now ... ’cause I’ve been ignoring it for the last ten years or so...).
The problem is that there is no quality control. As I have gained expertise in some areas, I’ve learned to avoid the aforementioned (but unnamed) website, because whenever I have looked at something where I do have expertise, I’ve noticed an almost unvarying characteristic: it was written by people who don’t know enough about what they are doing to be talking about it.
Some of the authors are at least honest enough to say, “I just learned this” (paraphrasing), but the problem is that the site presents itself as a howto/tutorial/example code/expert site. When it isn’t.
(I have also, in the past, discovered that things I have gotten from the site are of questionable value to me... so that clued me in after a while...)
In any case, my point is that HOWTO information should be informed by people who actually know what they are talking about, and can, besides saying DO IT THIS WAY, also explain many of the reasons, caveats, and special cases that go along with it.
Now, don’t take me too far. I am only noting the general character of such things, including stuff in our Articles sections. I can go and write stuff about how to do color on the terminal, but it would appear next to at least two other articles that make mine look like too much work, nit-picking, etc, and the other articles seem to get the job done —all without warning the user about stuff that he will likely encounter at some future point and wonder what changed.
For those people who are conscientious enough to be thorough, I have on occasion seen very well-written articles. (So I suspect that you will do a great job.)
But again, finding your article, and then distinguishing its quality in comparison to some other articles —good luck for a newbie.
I am not trying to warn you off. Please do contribute high-quality stuff to the Articles.
A lot of howto and tutorial articles appear on the internet by people who had just learned something and wanted to share. There’s even a website devoted to exactly that (...that orange site I can’t remember the name of right now ... ’cause I’ve been ignoring it for the last ten years or so...).
The problem is that there is no quality control. As I have gained expertise in some areas, I’ve learned to avoid the aforementioned (but unnamed) website, because whenever I have looked at something where I do have expertise, I’ve noticed an almost unvarying characteristic: it was written by people who don’t know enough about what they are doing to be talking about it.
Some of the authors are at least honest enough to say, “I just learned this” (paraphrasing), but the problem is that the site presents itself as a howto/tutorial/example code/expert site. When it isn’t.
(I have also, in the past, discovered that things I have gotten from the site are of questionable value to me... so that clued me in after a while...)
In any case, my point is that HOWTO information should be informed by people who actually know what they are talking about, and can, besides saying DO IT THIS WAY, also explain many of the reasons, caveats, and special cases that go along with it.
Now, don’t take me too far. I am only noting the general character of such things, including stuff in our Articles sections. I can go and write stuff about how to do color on the terminal, but it would appear next to at least two other articles that make mine look like too much work, nit-picking, etc, and the other articles seem to get the job done —all without warning the user about stuff that he will likely encounter at some future point and wonder what changed.
For those people who are conscientious enough to be thorough, I have on occasion seen very well-written articles. (So I suspect that you will do a great job.)
But again, finding your article, and then distinguishing its quality in comparison to some other articles —good luck for a newbie.
I am not trying to warn you off. Please do contribute high-quality stuff to the Articles.
Most people don't know that you can still write Articles (though they will be on some old page which nobody knows even exists). Moreover even if more people knew, there's nobody to moderate it. So what's the point? It's just a dead carcass that nobody knows even exists.
There's a lot of things that can be improved in this forum, including the formatting glitch while posting a new thread so the article section is the last thing to complain about.
Honestly I think it's safe to say by now that this forum won't get any fixes or improvements.
There's a lot of things that can be improved in this forum, including the formatting glitch while posting a new thread so the article section is the last thing to complain about.
Honestly I think it's safe to say by now that this forum won't get any fixes or improvements.
closed account (z05DSL3A)
I hate websites sometimes, just spent an age writings a reply only to hit a link while scrolling up to see what was said and puff the post is lost. Let's see if I can remember the salient points...and write this outside of the site.
Duthomhas, I think that we are more on the same page than you realise. I am thinking more along the lines of guides to information that I find worthwhile than writing How-to or tutorial articles. There may be something that I find that is new to me that turned out to be a god send, that eureka moment, but I would write about it as my journey from the problem to the solution. There are many articles about 'how to skin a cat' but I often find the ones about 'why I skin the cat the way that I skin the cat' more interesting.
I suffer a bit from imposter syndrome, not helped by not doing any serious C++ work for 5 years or so, so I am very careful about what I write in the public arena. I would also encourage 'peer review' to make any article as worthwhile as possible. In that way it may help with the searching aspect of this, if the article is worth it it will be linked to.
Grime, I'm not trying to get anything changed with regards to the article section, just trying to determine if it is worth trying to breath some life into it or indeed if twicker no longer pushes the button to publish articles. I have an article, Book Of Brilliant Things, that I last updated back in 2010...it could probably do with a spring clean.
I do wonder about the general health of the site but that's not for this thread.
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Duthomhas, I think that we are more on the same page than you realise. I am thinking more along the lines of guides to information that I find worthwhile than writing How-to or tutorial articles. There may be something that I find that is new to me that turned out to be a god send, that eureka moment, but I would write about it as my journey from the problem to the solution. There are many articles about 'how to skin a cat' but I often find the ones about 'why I skin the cat the way that I skin the cat' more interesting.
I suffer a bit from imposter syndrome, not helped by not doing any serious C++ work for 5 years or so, so I am very careful about what I write in the public arena. I would also encourage 'peer review' to make any article as worthwhile as possible. In that way it may help with the searching aspect of this, if the article is worth it it will be linked to.
-----===##===-----
Grime, I'm not trying to get anything changed with regards to the article section, just trying to determine if it is worth trying to breath some life into it or indeed if twicker no longer pushes the button to publish articles. I have an article, Book Of Brilliant Things, that I last updated back in 2010...it could probably do with a spring clean.
I do wonder about the general health of the site but that's not for this thread.
I have learned to always Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C before pressing “Submit”.
I live out in the desert, with only a few coyotes and a nearby cell tower to keep me warm, and my internet is often spotty between response packets.
Oh, for extra derailment, yesterday I found out where the intermittent stink was coming from in my kitchen: A mouse ate some of our green mouse treats and decided to kick the bucket in the refrigerator drain pan. Every time the compressor and fan came on, it would waft the lovely scent all across the house. It made for some lovely meal times.
I live out in the desert, with only a few coyotes and a nearby cell tower to keep me warm, and my internet is often spotty between response packets.
Oh, for extra derailment, yesterday I found out where the intermittent stink was coming from in my kitchen: A mouse ate some of our green mouse treats and decided to kick the bucket in the refrigerator drain pan. Every time the compressor and fan came on, it would waft the lovely scent all across the house. It made for some lovely meal times.
closed account (E0p9LyTq)
| A mouse ate some of our green mouse treats and decided to kick the bucket in the refrigerator drain pan. Every time the compressor and fan came on, it would waft the lovely scent all across the house. It made for some lovely meal times. |
Mmmmmm, that smells like breakfast!
I live in a very urban suburban area. Just across the main street is another city. They have an entirely different electric company. I get my power from a larger city utility, and they have more power outage problems than the smaller city utility.
Gotta love UPSes, uninterruptible power supplies. All my major electronics -- TVs, DVD/Bluray players, computers, internet gateway, etc. -- hooked up so I have time to safely shut down when there are power outages.
Really annoying is the amount of electrical noise the utility allows. Before I had any UPS it trashed several pieces of gear.
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