New Programming Forums poll

[cyberfish]

We had an ASM forum? When was that? I was checking out cboard snapshots on Wayback, and couldn't find any mention of it. Too bad it only indexes the index...
Internet Archive Wayback Machine

[MK27]

cboard has the perfect amount of forums. With the exception of Article Discussions / FAQ Board / Programming Book and Product Reviews. With good reason. Those very few topics could be moved to other forums, or the main website (FAQ).

I think that one purpose to the "slow moving" forums you mention is that (generally) the threads in them are of a less transient, more polished nature than in the "fast moving" threads, and contain a much higher percentage of things that would/could/should be interesting as information, but can also be updated from time to time. Those things would just be buried and lost in the main forums so nobody would be bothered to write them -- witness, they are not questions, which makes them categorically different.

For example, altho the AI forum has had way more posts than I would have remembered from the past year, that would have been impossible to observe if they weren't actually together in one forum. Altho really the AI questions still fall into what I would call a "transient" category different from the things in Articles, Reviews, or FAQs.

[Fordy]

I dont like forums with too many forums. Look at Javaranch - good forum, but before you post, you have to spend 5 minutes working out which of the dozens of forums would be best for your question.

[Salem]

> you have to spend 5 minutes working out which of the dozens of forums would be best for your question.
And then be told you picked the wrong one

Axiom: If there is only one forum, then by definition you cannot be off-topic, and you cannot cross-post.

[Nyda]

Now that is hard to believe

(I know you're being ironic but) I think it really is. Assembler programming can be a lot of fun as long as you don't try to write an entire application in it.

[VirtualAce]

The matter of whether something is fun or not is not the criteria used for deciding whether or not it should be a forum.

I believe the C# forum has more relevance than people might see simply b/c it can interface quite easily with C++ through C DLLs and even easier via C++/CLI classes. The GUI power that C# brings to the table just cannot be matched by MFC or any other third party C++ library. And it's not the fault of the library as much as it is the fault of the default Windows controls that have been provided for so long with Win32. The standard controls are just horrible in Win32. The ones provided in .NET, while not perfect, are very very nice. One could argue there may be a need for a C++/CLI instead of a C# forum but I would argue that you can post CLI on the C++ forum and still call it C++. C++/CLI development has been hampered by C# since C# provides all that C++/CLI does and with less hassle, less learning curve, and probably faster dev times. It was much harder for me to dive into C++/CLI than it was C# b/c even though C++/CLI is 'close' to C++ it is not true C++ according to the standards. I would rather train my brain with something completely new such as C# than pollute my C++ knowledge with something like C++/CLI.

I'm not in favor of more forums simply b/c the more forums we have the less focused we become. The less focused we become the less effective the board as a whole is. Staying focused is what makes this place as good as it is. You can't be everything to everyone and you can't be an expert in all things and all languages. So I guess my point is if you support everything you really support nothing.

[bithub]

I believe the C# forum has more relevance than people might see simply b/c it can interface quite easily with C++ through C DLLs

I'm having a hard time thinking of a language that can't do this.

[abachler]

I'd like a Java forum, since Java is a lot more closely related to C/C++ than Assembly is.

not only d I think a java forum would be bad, I think the C# forum should be removed.