Welcome to Software Development on Codidact!
Will you help us build our independent community of developers helping developers? We're small and trying to grow. We welcome questions about all aspects of software development, from design to code to QA and more. Got questions? Got answers? Got code you'd like someone to review? Please join us.
Comparing our site scope to Stack Overflow
We've had discussions before about the site's intended scope (range of permissible topics and questions), but for new users coming from the Stack Exchange network, I think it would be useful to draw an explicit comparison with Stack Overflow and related sites.
The Stack Exchange network has several sites aside from Stack Overflow that nominally relate to programming. Even setting aside the ones that are more about information technology, database administration, networking etc., we have (from oldest to newest according to the list):
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Game Development
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Software Engineering (formerly Programmers)
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Code Review
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Code Golf
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Computational Science
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Computer Science
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Data Science
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Open Source
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Artificial Intelligence
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DevOps
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Operations Research (? This seems to be a subset of computational science and/or data science, but I don't really understand it)
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Programming Language Design and Implementation
And some slightly more tangential sites:
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Software Quality Assurance & Testing (a separate task, but developers must often do their own testing)
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Cryptography (also relevant to mathematicians generally)
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Reverse Engineering (this plausibly encompasses "targets" that aren't programs)
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Software Recommendations (could include recommendations for libraries, which are off topic on Stack Overflow)
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Arduino (overlaps with hardware development)
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Computer Graphics (overlaps with hardware considerations)
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Retrocomputing (about history rather than problem-solving; concerns both hardware and software)
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Internet of Things
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Computer Science Educators
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Quantum Computing
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GenAI (maybe?)
as well as sites about specific kinds of "hardware" that might be programmable (Robotics, of course; but there's a Bricks site about Lego generally, and Lego Mindstorms products are programmable), technologies where programming might be relevant (such as Bitcoin), etc.
How much of this is intended to be encompassed within this site's scope? Can we reject making analogous sites on Codidact, on the basis that Software already covers them?
What about if we consider questions in terms of the kind of question, rather than the exact topic matter? For example, do we have a looser standard for subjective questions (the sort where experts might contribute wisdom rather than knowledge)?
Contrarily, are there any questions that might be suitable for Stack Overflow, but off topic here?
2 answers
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Some relevant history for consideration (not an answer about specific scope boundaries):
When we started to discuss a programming or software community, we were concerned about premature fragmentation. We had a lot of discussion, which we ultimately resolved as a single community open to spin-offs later:
We resolved this by creating Software Development with broad scope. There's even a Code Review category. If the community grows to a size that's hard to manage and subsets want to spin off later, we can do that.
This isn't a nebulous "we could make other communities, I suppose"; if this community identifies scope that would work better as a separate community -- or a separate category within this community -- we will work together with y'all to make it happen.
(Codidact does have a separate Code Golf community.)
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The main difference between Stack Exchange and Codidact is that SE loves to spawn off hundreds of sites with lots of overlapping scopes, whereas Codiact has the category system, which means that contents like for example AI and GenAI could exist on the same site.
The general idea about software.codidact.com is that it contains questions asked by programmers, that in turn require a programmer to answer them.
Questions that would be on-topic at sites that were proposed and not yet launched can be asked at proposals.codidact.com, by using the corresponding site proposal tag.
Questions that have no direct match could ultimately lead to a new proposal at proposals.codidact.com, in case one believes that there is potential for a community of many active users.
As of now, this would be the status of the corresponding Stack Exchange sites:
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Stack Overflow
software.codidact.com is mostly a corresponding site, except for some details:- Embedded programming, HDL language questions, PLC programming etc should be asked at electrical.codidact.com.
- Office suite questions (excel formulas and similar) should be asked at powerusers.codidact.com
- Bash script and similar have overlapping scope between software.codidact.com and linux.codidact.com.
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Game Development
software.codidact.com for now. There is a proposal for a video game site, but there is no consensus yet about whether it should cover game development or not. -
Software Engineering
software.codidact.com -
Code Review
software.codidact.com, use the Code Review question category. -
Code Golf
codegolf.codidact.com -
Computational Science
No directly corresponding site. Depending on the nature of the question, it might be on topic at software.codidact.com, math.codidact.com or powerusers.codidact.com. Some questions might not be on-topic anywhere. -
Computer Science
software.codidact.com for now. There is a Computer Science site proposal. -
Data Science
No directly corresponding site. See comments above below Computational Science. There is a Machine Learning site proposal and an AI tech site proposal. -
Open Source
No directly corresponding site. There is an Open Source site proposal. -
Artificial Intelligence
No directly corresponding site. There is an AI tech site proposal. -
DevOps
No directly corresponding site. May or may not be on-topic at software.codidact.com or powerusers.codidact.com. -
Operations Research
No directly corresponding site. -
Programming Language Design and Implementation
software.codidact.com
"Tangental sites":
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Software Quality Assurance & Testing
software.codidact.com -
Cryptography
software.codidact.com or math.codidact.com depending on the question. -
Reverse Engineering
No directly corresponding site. May or may not be on-topic at software.codidact.com (software) or electrical.codidact.com (firmware or hardware) -
Software Recommendations
No directly corresponding site. powerusers.codidact.com accepts some of these questions. -
Arduino
electrical.codidact.com accepts these questions but with some restrictions.Questions regarding a microcontroller boards or firmware are on-topic. Questions regarding Arduino-specific terms or usage are generally off-topic. Good questions are accompanied with schematics and datasheets. Bad questions are accompanied by "picture of breadboard wires" diagrams from strange Arduino drawing programs.
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Computer Graphics
No directly corresponding site. May or may not be on-topic at software.codidact.com (graphics programming), photography.codidact.com (video/photo editing etc) or powerusers.codidact.com (hardware graphic card questions). -
Retrocomputing
No directly corresponding site. May or may not be on-topic at software.codidact.com or electrical.codidact.com. -
Internet of Things
software.codidact.com or electrical.codidact.com. -
Computer Science Educators
software.codidact.com -
Quantum Computing
No directly corresponding site. -
GenAI
No directly corresponding site. There is an AI tech site proposal.
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