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Comments on Are general questions (hopefully resulting in comprehensive, 'canonical' answers) in scope
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Are general questions (hopefully resulting in comprehensive, 'canonical' answers) in scope
Co I'm a database/desktop dev venturing into programming web apps using Angular and I've been informed 'functional reactive programming' is something I should be aware of.
Some other site has a general question on FRP, but a) it is locked - off-topic but has historical significance, b) it is over 12 years old (which may or may not be a problem, but I don't know) and c) the language of the top answer is described in a 212-vote comment as requiring a doctorate in computational mathematics to understand.
I want to know if a general, 'what's it all about?' question would be on-topscope. I know that the initial response will be 'look in up on Wikipedia', followed by 'didja try google?', but in the case of the former I'm looking for FRP information from a programmer's POV, not for the general audience that Wikipedia serves and for the latter, well I'm hoping that this site becomes the place that googling sends others to.
I checked the What type of questions can I ask here? page and this type of question doesn't seem to be in either the on or off topic list. I also looked through the other codidact sites and didn't see a match.
Question: Is it in scope to ask for a general explanation in programming related topics (eg: FRP, OOP, regex, ML, blockchain, decentralised vs centralised CVS etc) or is that more suited to a new community request?
As an aside, I envisage similar 'concept explanation' type questions could be asked on other community sites, eg: LFS, systemd, unix philosophy, the whole unix/freebsd/linux situation on Linux Systems, sautéing, sous-vide, curry science, how gluten works, leavening in Cooking, ISO values, under/over exposure, SLR/DSLR & mirrorless technology, camera motion (pan, zoom, tilt, truck, dolly) in Photography & Video etc.
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Generally these questions are fine, though they should come with specific examples, so that they become clearer and can get narrowed-down. I've done a lot of self-answered Q&A here and the hardest part is often to ask a sensible question.
- Overly broad questions like "what is OOP?" isn't likely to be well-received.
- If you can narrow it down to a specific feature then it might be better, such as "what is private encapsulation?"
- Or even better, when it turns even more specific: "What are setter/getter functions and when do I use them? Is this correct use [code example in language x]?"
The first bullet is IMO a bad question, the second is half-decent and the third is a good question.
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