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Comments on A cleanup of "What type of questions can I ask here?"
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A cleanup of "What type of questions can I ask here?"
What type of questions can I ask here? has gotten rather cluttered since we have added/removed a lot of things along the way. In particular, I think it is hard to get an idea of what's on-topic by just taking a glance at it.
Proposed changes:
- Move the text directly below on-topic to a separate section called "general scope". And at the same time remove spreadsheets from the text since that's a remain from before Power Users site launch. We have earlier consensus that Office Suite questions should be migrated there.
General scope of this site
This site is about writing software, where software is understood to include any means of specifying to computer actions to be performed later. This includes general-purpose programming languages, as well as for example SQL and shell scripts.
- Make headlines in bold text to all the on-topic/off-topic bullets, so that one can easily get an overview. I have done so while trying to not change anything of the actual contents. In some cases I have changed grammar or removed superfluous examples. I have changed the order so that bullets that (kind of) belong together are placed next to each other.
On-topic
- Software implementation, specific programming or troubleshooting problems that include attempts to solve or debug the problem.
- Software design, software architecture, or modeling.
- Best practices as long as clear "best" criteria are provided and they can be answered using references or expertise consensus.
- Software development tools including how to install, configure, troubleshoot and use tools specifically meant for software development (e.g. compilers, debuggers, IDEs)
- The software development process and project cycles specific to software engineering such as requirements, design or testing.
- Software life cycle managment including build configurations, version control, release, and deployment.
- Software documentation including how to write it or how to use tools for that purpose.
- Database management including database design, programming, or access through SQL.
- Code reviews that follow the guidelines for code review.
- User Interfaces that involve some programming: including mark-up language syntax, how to set properties in RAD tools, how to use graphic libraries. As well as algorithm questions regarding how to draw graphics, including to some extent the math and physics behind it.
Off-topic
- Asking for implementations of a certain feature or a whole homework assignment. You should include your (partially working) attempts in the post.
- Asking for detailed explanations of posted code, unless the code is small, self-contained and an attempt to understand it is also included.
- Simple typos. Questions where the problem was caused by simple typographical errors are very unlikely to be useful in the future and may be closed.
- General computer or software support which is not connected to software development/engineering (e.g. ask for recommendations)
- System, network or server administration.
- Embedded systems programming including microcontroller programming, hardware description languages, RTOS questions, PLC programming. Please use Electrical Codidact instead.
- Project management.
- Software licensing.
- UI or graphic aesthetics. What looks best, color choices, graphic design, and similar are mostly subjective questions.
Kindly vote up if you agree with these changes or down if you disagree. Please leave an answer if you wish to change something. I will update this question in case there is community consensus that something in the proposal or the existing scope should be changed.
Post
If we compare to SO (and we do) there's one thing I really don't like there. And that is that so many questions get closed for being too opinionated.
Granted, many of them is quite naively asked. Like simply "What is best of A and B?" But this can often easily be rephrased in a way that allows answers based on facts. And that change is "What are the pros and cons of A and B?" And even with that change, many questions on SO would be closed because they are considered opinionated. I think it's sad, because many of these questions are quite important, and the answers contain very useful information.
So I think that
Best practices as long as clear "best" criteria are provided and they can be answered using references or expertise consensus.
should be loosened up a bit. I'm not sure exactly how.
But perhaps it's best to add a new category besides Q/A, Code review and Meta. A category with the simple purpose of allowing questions that does not necessarily have a clear answer.
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