Thread: Why not add CUDA forum?

  1. #1
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    Why not add CUDA forum?

    It is C/C++ after all.
    My Ctrl+S addiction gets in the way when using Code Blocks...

  2. #2
    and the hat of int overfl Salem's Avatar
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    1. There are plenty of forums around which specialise in CUDA - try them instead -> CUDA forum - Google Search

    2. Adding the forum is easy, but without a good community of people to support it, it's going to die a quick death. A couple of people might ask a question or two, they go unanswered because there is no expertese here, so they go elsewhere.

    3. Any CUDA experts are going to be signed up to established CUDA forums. They're not likely just to quickly sign up here, only to find that very few questions get asked.
    If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
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    Well that is a bad excuse. You can pretty much use it for anything you want, as few things are new in this world.

    When you started C forums wasn't there already established forums?

    Anyways no pressure, just thought I'd give that suggestion, anything that is new needs to start small.
    My Ctrl+S addiction gets in the way when using Code Blocks...

  4. #4
    and the hat of int overfl Salem's Avatar
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    Just search for C# forums and see how near to the top of the list the C# forum here is.
    c# forum - Google Search
    I didn't see our c# in the first 3 pages, which means almost nobody comes here.

    Unlike all the other forums on this board, the C# forum was created as a result of some popularity contest. Most of those who voted "for" have long since vanished. It hovers around about 1 question per day, and there are only a few people with enough skill to answer questions.

    You might have some romantic notion of "if you build it, they will come", but I don't think the real world works like that. But if you want to, plead your case directly to webmaster.


    Whereas searching for "c forum", we're right up there on the first page.

    If people started asking lots of CUDA questions (we get one or two per YEAR), AND there just happened to be lots of good CUDA answers, then at some point there would be a board split to create it's own sub-forum (like how the OS specific and networking sub-forums were split from just being "C" or "C++").
    If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
    If at first you don't succeed, try writing your phone number on the exam paper.

  5. #5
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JonathanS View Post
    Well that is a bad excuse.
    No, it's a very good excuse. There are no end of duplicated forums on (relatively) esoteric topics on the internet, with thread counts in the dozens even after several years, the "last post" dated a weeks ago, etc. Various aspects of web-dev are a good example of this, because there are so many divergent technologies, and at various points in time, half the general purpose web-dev forums in existence decided to dedicate a forum to topic X without much support amongst their actual user base. And there are going to be orders of magnitude more web programmers than CUDA programmers in the world.

    You know what happens because of that? Anyone with half a brain wanting to ask a question on such a topic they are newly interested in finds those forums via google, takes one look at the cobwebs, and goes straight to Stack Overflow. Which, perhaps, is the best place for certain relatively esoteric questions.

    Starting a new forum here for CUDA is not going to significantly increase the number of CUDA programmers in the world, so the most that could be accomplished would be to split the user base between here and the NVIDIA forum (which is where this really belongs), then instead of 1/2 dozen posts a day on one forum, you have a few posts a day on two forums. What's the point? If the people who can actually help you with CUDA related questions are anywhere, they are already over at NVIDIA. If not, they are not going to start monitoring cboard because we started a forum here. Chances are NVIDIA pays people to monitor their own, existing forum (they'd be stupid not to), making it a certainty that the expertise will stay where it is.

    So most likely, the post count won't get split, because people aren't that stupid. They'll realize this topic is not big enough to warrant more than one internet forum, and they'll use the #1 at NVIDIA.

    Also, a couple of casual observations (having been a regular here for 4+ years):

    1) The traffic has noticeably declined here in the past 6-12 months.
    2) The traffic in the C++ forum in particular has steadily decreased for longer than that.
    3) The traffic in the more specialized forums that I monitor has dropped off drastically; eg. not long ago, there were new threads in the linux forum on a daily basis. This year so far, it's more like a few per month.

    It's unlikely this is because of a sudden drop in C or C++ (or linux) users. Most likely, it is because of the steady growth of Stack Overflow. S.O. is great for certain kinds of questions, but much less so for students/beginners, and I think in general we do a better job of what we do here, without trying to be all things to all people. Now, if this were a business (hey, in fact I believe it is!), and the business were declining, do you think it would be a good move to go, "Now is the time to expand into an esoteric speciality market", esp. with the S.O. elephant in the room (which works very well for esoteric/specialized stuff)?

    Notice that we don't even have an embedded programming forum, which that is an area that we do get frequent posts on (as opposed to CUDA, which we don't -- the most useful thing to do for someone asking CUDA questions here would be to point them to the NVIDIA forum). We don't have forums dedicated to GL or DirectX either. And so on. So if we were to start a new forum because one person has expressed an interest, where do we stop? Why not 5 or 10 others? Why not an openCL forum? Why not just add a button to the interface, "Start new forum" ?

    You may think that CUDA programming is not "relatively esoteric", but it is, and it is likely to remain that way permanently. In addition, it is not limited to C/C++ (according to wikipedia, there are bindings for a dozen other languages).
    Last edited by MK27; 03-18-2012 at 03:24 AM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

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    Registered User rogster001's Avatar
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    I have to say, and I might be imagining things here but it seemed to me there was a major drop off in posts to these boards right after the schema was redone. I mean the first one i saw after a couple of years anyhow. I seriously noticed less posts almost immediately over the following weeks / months. i would also add that quality counts, if this were a paid answers forum, i would subscribe. There is only one other i would say that about; the FLTK pages, but that is a specific interest as has been stated.

    My other ten pence worth is that It may be an idea to have the Linux forum morphed to explicity include general Shell scripting advice also? ksh bash etc, but not PERL as that is probably well covered elsewhere, and i know ksh, bash is too, but i feel there are enough regulars here with expertise that could supply a good volume of quality responses to support it. Plus from what i have seen It is actually quite difficult to post questions in the prevalent forums, although plenty of answers can be come by from searching old stuff. Might be a good angle for us. Then it is the CBoard, but so many of those languages have tried to mix in at least C style syntax and borrowed elements. and then there was the cshell....
    Last edited by rogster001; 03-23-2012 at 04:28 PM.
    Thought for the day:
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    FLTK: "The most fun you can have with your clothes on."

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  7. #7
    [](){}(); manasij7479's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rogster001 View Post
    I have to say, and I might be imagining things here but it seemed to me there was a major drop off in posts to these boards right after the schema was redone.
    What schema ?

  8. #8
    Registered User rogster001's Avatar
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    The board used to look different, was just before you joined when it changed, late 2010 / early 2011 i think, maybe a bit before, better functionality now though sure
    Thought for the day:
    "Are you sure your sanity chip is fully screwed in sir?" (Kryten)
    FLTK: "The most fun you can have with your clothes on."

    Stroustrup:
    "If I had thought of it and had some marketing sense every computer and just about any gadget would have had a little 'C++ Inside' sticker on it'"

  9. #9
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    I don't get how a layout change by itself causes activity to decrease, but people are transient so that and the layouts evolving are coincidence. Most likely?

  10. #10
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    I honestly can't say that I've even noticed a layout change since I've been here. Some minor details occasionally after an upgrade is all.

    I have noticed in the past that posts from undergrads, which are at least 2/3 of all posts, drop drastically at certain points -- eg, once exams are over during the holidays at the end of the year, which is in between semesters most places. Then at one point probably early in the new year I remember thinking, hmm, it didn't really bounce back that much. That must have been this year though, because I think I stayed away from cboard for a lot of 2010-2011 (whenever the "likes" started...was that the "layout change"?). When I came back, I do remember noticing the C board was now busier than the C++ board, which it wasn't before. Maybe y'all have been scaring them off over there, heh-heh.

    Looking for a few questions to answer in the morning is like getting a coffee for me, I notice this stuff (then of course, once I start drinking coffee, I usually have to have more again in an hour or so).
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  11. #11
    [](){}(); manasij7479's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    When I came back, I do remember noticing the C board was now busier than the C++ board, which it wasn't before.
    I think C++ is rapidly becoming less recommended as a learning tool.
    I don't know why though, as it has the most 'easy' but powerful way to deal with abstractions, which programming is almost all about.

  12. #12
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    On one hand, there are the C punters, who typically are like: "If we want to work with hardware, anything but C isn't going to cut it."
    Then, for the desktop, there are: ".NET is the future! C++? Ewww, who wants to use that ancient, low-level language?"
    Then, for performance, there are: "Go, go, C! C is the king of performance!"

    And to be honest, C++ is quite a beast to teach compared to other languages. So that, and with common misconceptions and the C people...
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  13. #13
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by manasij7479 View Post
    I think C++ is rapidly becoming less recommended as a learning tool.
    I don't know why though, as it has as it has the most 'easy' but powerful way to deal with abstractions, which programming is almost all about.
    WHAT??? I don't know whether or not C++ is being used/recommended for various purposes and I am not saying this as a detraction from the language, but anyone who thinks that C++ has "the most 'easy' but powerful way to deal with abstractions" is either out of their minds, or never programmed in another language. Every other formal OO language I've worked in -- java, perl, ruby (a wee bit), javascript, php (occasionally) -- has very noticeably "easier" ways of dealing with abstraction. It makes total sense to me that teachers might want to start with one of those (maybe not perl or javascript as they are sort of eccentric).

    I don't see that as a detraction because I also think C++ has clear advantages those languages do not (in different ways), and the comparatively awkward interface is perhaps the price you pay. As Elysia says:

    And to be honest, C++ is quite a beast to teach compared to other languages.
    Last edited by MK27; 03-26-2012 at 02:12 PM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  14. #14
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    Every other formal OO language I've worked in -- java, perl, ruby, javascript, php -- has a noticeably "easier" way of dealing with abstraction.
    I would say that's pretty subjective unless you can back that up with some kind of scientific fact.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  15. #15
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    I would say that's pretty subjective unless you can back that up with some kind of scientific fact.
    The first and most obvious point would be that those languages have garbage collection and runtime bounds checking. The second would be that, except for java, they are dynamically typed -- an easier way to deal with abstraction, and a powerful one. The third would be that they do not incorporate C and the baggage that goes with it, lol.

    Not everybody likes GC or dynamic typing, but to say that they do not make things easier, esp. for beginners, is a bit absurd. And they abstract away low level details.

    I imagine most people do like runtime bounds checking, but it is a performance hit.
    Last edited by MK27; 03-26-2012 at 02:21 PM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

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