We’ve seen this sort of thing before. I suppose I’m imagining a message board, divided by topic, which has a google/yahoo! ask style of posting, where when a question is answered it is marked as such.
How would this be different? How would it distinguish itself? If I have a question about (for example) a Mac programming issue, or a .Net library programming issue, why would I go to stackoverflow instead of the Apple or Microsoft developer forums?
I would imagine that “community” is half of the answer. I have a suggestion for the rest: Posting code on forums is notoriously irritating. It would be nice to be able to post code to the site to ask questions about, but have the site automatically add syntax highlighting based on the type of code. How? By adding markup tags based on the language, such as:
At first, you don’t even have to implement the syntax highlighting for all languages, just make it do fixed-width font, then add syntax highlighting for individual languages incrementally.
Edited to add second suggestion: Perhaps you should allow forum members to tag posts arbitrarily, so that if someone posts a question about a language (or library) that doesn’t have a forum dedicated to it, you can still search/sort/filter based on it. The best example of this is Python which has a few “sub-languages” and a few alternative implementations. What if you have an IronPython specific question? Post it under the Python forum (or the dynamic languages forum) and tag it as IronPython. Have a question about the Boo programming language (arguably a sub-language of Python)? Then post it in the Python forum and tag it with Boo.
Sweet! Another great podcast! I haven’t found one I really like other than Hanselminutes, and I’d like more to listen to on the bus. 30-45 minutes is the perfect length. DOTNET Rocks is a little too long for me. I’m looking forward to the site, I’ve been an Atwood and Spolsky fan for a while.
Finished listening to the podcast, and the idea sounds interesting, though I’ll definitely be curious to see how you set up the UI, moderation, and such to make sure the site remains useful and isn’t just spammed with garbage, since those are not easy problems to solve from a technical standpoint (but then, many “social” style issues within community software rarely are if they are designed for a larger audience, though obviously karma systems help).
Plus of course seeing how you make it sustainable since it’s going to be free to use, as after all it would suck if a ton of GREAT information was posted, but then bandwidth bills crushed the site taking it offline because it got too expensive to maintain.
Hopefully in the end it pans out well for you though, and good luck.
Now talk about vaporware… you ain’t got notting yet!
Podcasts? Not my thing.
Please let me know when you have something to boast about (until then, please refrain from bugging me/us). I hope you take that as some constructive criticism. In your Podcast you’ve probably talked about all the nice features you want to implement. Probably you can implement some of these features in short time, and afterwards expand…
coding horror, stack overflow, … what is your next project, infinite-loop? I always get some nice comments from non-tech co-workers when they catch me read coding horror.
anyway, looking forward to see this project expand. I have read both blogs for several years, nice to see that you can work something out.
I have one request, can you guys chant "developers, developers, developers… " at the next postcast?
The main image on http://www.stackoverflow.com/ is blocked by my work’s WebSense (as it’s hosted by imageshack)
Just thought I’d let you know as it may be a site used by many people at work and I’d hate stackoverflow to be blocked by Websense by association.
I’ll be following how this progresses with great interest (as well as the responses to it). Very interesting if only because of your involvement together with Joel Spolsky.
While intriguing that you’ll only be communicating (at first) via podcast, I also agree that transcripts would be helpful.
I have to say I’m totally confused as to what the point of this site is. There’s one image and an mp3. Sorry, I don’t want to listen to an mp3 right now, I prefer reading text. So the site for me right now has zero useful content.
I’m thinking of Joel’s old “Good software takes ten years” article where he mentions you shouldn’t overhype your version 1.0. Otherwise you end up with “Marimba syndrome” where everybody thinks your app is pointless cause it’s got no features - yet.
“Let’s create something that makes it easy to participate, and put it online in a form that is trivially easy to find.”
What - like discuss.joelonsoftware.com? Say what you like about the content but it’s easy to participate and easy to find.
This site’s also got a “chicken and egg” problem. To start with, I’m unlikely to post there because there won’t be many readers, and I’m unlikely to read there because not too many people are likely to be posting stuff I want. Where’s your backwards compatability solution to get out of this?
I mean, good luck with your venture and all, but have I completely missed the point of what this is about?
just a (little) request. maybe it would be a good idea to present the audio in a zip file or similar. not because of the compression, but just because my company is blocking MP3 downloading in general.
tia
Sorry you move to podcasts. I still have to download one of them to my IPod, since with two young kids I just get to browse through some feeds while nursing them, I’d have huge problems to listen to anything more complicated than music.
Moreover, podcasts are not searchable, which makes it a big downside to something which would contain advice for programming issues.
Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on it and maybe participate with a question or two I have on my mind.
Please, can you record your podcast in a better audio quality than telephone-quality? I can understand you very well, but it would be much nicer to listen to if the audio quality (sample rate) was better.
Congrats. Sounds like a good site.
I am wondering since you quit your day job, what is your revenue model going to be? I didn’t see advertising mentioned, it that the route?
Why didn’t you use a DOCTYPE?
present the audio in a zip file or similar
The main image is blocked by my work’s WebSense
Fixed.
Still hate the name, but it is what it is.
I hear you. It’s difficult to appreciate how hard naming is until you have to do it! But yes, stackoverflow.com it is.
What - like discuss.joelonsoftware.com? Say what you like about the content but it’s easy to participate and easy to find. This site’s also got a “chicken and egg” problem.
I find podcasts to be way too time consuming
I haven’t listened to the podcast; I’d usually much rather read a text transcript
I also am no fan of podcasts, but Joel believes it adds another dimension to our writing when you can hear voice, intonation, etcetera. Please listen to the next podcast, I will specifically bring this up so Joel can relate his thoughts on this. Yes, I know it’s ironic to ask people who don’t enjoy podcasts to listen to one that explains why they might want to. We’ll do it at the very beginning so you don’t have to listen to the whole thing!
The podcast is mostly a side effect of work that Joel and I already do – we have these weekly calls, and we thought some people might enjoy them. That said, I rarely if ever listen to podcasts so believe me, I totally get where you’re coming from.
Come on Jeff - you gotta have an RSS feed for the podcast
Why are you only taking questions in the form of audio recordings? That seems like a real inefficiency. How do I browse open questions or previously answered questions?
I always get some nice comments from non-tech co-workers when they catch me read coding horror.
