Wiki FAQ

dwks · 12-19-2007, 04:32 PM

While suggesting stuff to Elysia to include in this FAQ-like post, I thought about Wiki FAQs. That way I could edit it myself instead of just suggesting stuff to Elysia.

Yes, this is a contested topic.
Wiki FAQ
Wiki for Tutorials
http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showp...2&postcount=59
http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showp...9&postcount=14
It's like syntax highlighting.

I guess there are three reasons for this thread:

To ask whether there are any serious objections to a Wiki FAQ, especially one that leaves the current FAQ intact.
To determine whether the moderators would be willing to install a Wiki for use as an FAQ.
Failing all else, to see how many people would be willing to support a user-initiated Wiki FAQ.

Notice I said "failing all else". Please, nobody start a Wiki FAQ without discussing it first -- or we'll have a flood of them. dwks' CBoard Wiki FAQ! Salem's CBoard Wiki FAQ! Elysia's CBoard Wiki FAQ! twomers'! CornedBee's! Moderators' FAQ Inc.! Associated Alliance of Users Beginning with A! (I can see CBoard disintegrating into a squabbling mass of users over this . . . .)

Anyway: failing all else, why don't we start up a Wiki FAQ? It's not difficult -- there are tons of free Wiki hosts out there. It doesn't even have to be officially affiliated with CBoard -- just some members linking to it all the time and putting it in their signatures would get it started. We could try it, and if it bombs, so what. If it becomes successful, there could be a link to it from the existing FAQ, without breaking anything.

(It probably wouldn't be a good idea to get rid of the existing FAQ entirely, though. http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showp...2&postcount=59)

It probably wouldn't be that difficult to add a Wiki FAQ to CBoard. However, I've never tried it myself, and so I don't know how involved it would be. Perhaps there are reasons for not having one, perhaps the moderators simply disapprove of it for some reason. Perhaps they think it isn't popular enough. (I sense another poll coming . . . .)

Who knows, maybe a Wiki could even be used for something other than FAQs -- for example, for posting completed projects. Long threads with updates about the program get scattered throughout the board. Stickied threads with many different programs don't work very well for updates.

Ideally, there ought to be a thread with links to threads about programs. Or we could reserve a board for it. Isn't that what the Projects etc board is for anyway?

But I'm getting off topic. Another reason you don't want to put me in charge of a Wiki FAQ.

Daved · 12-19-2007, 04:56 PM

Another C++ forum I frequent created a Wiki for FAQ/Tutorial stuff. I liked that idea and I enjoyed contributing to it.

With the size of this community, I wouldn't be surprised if an official or unofficial CBoard wiki could be successfully built up into a real resource.

I prefer a wiki because most of the other options on the main cprogramming page are provided by individuals who might have differing ideas of good advice than the majority who post here, and there's very little ability to police that information.

If there was one created I would likely contribute to it as well as my time permits.

ka3 · 12-19-2007, 05:03 PM

I like the idea of a Wiki FAQ. T'would be useful.

My suggestion for a WiKi would be a MediaWiKi Wiki. That's what Wikipedia uses.

whiteflags · 12-20-2007, 04:07 AM

Yeah it's not really a big deal anymore. If you incorporate the existing FAQ, great but I don't think you have to. So many people talk about the FAQ being dated or needing additional information -- this would be the way to make those changes. Plus if people want to update it they can. I wonder who will be members of the wiki?

zacs7 · 12-20-2007, 05:05 AM

What's wrong with the current FAQ?

I'm sure mods wouldn't have too much of a problem if you wrote something worth while of the current FAQ, and wasn't a waste of their time to add -- ie, stupid things like, "How to write Hello World by Elysia"

Quote:

Originally Posted by http://faq.cprogramming.com/cgi-bin/smartfaq.cgi?answer=1043368520&id=1031248513 (Hammer)

If you want write something to be added to the FAQ, simply create it in a standard text document, and get it to me via the forums. No need to bother with HTML etc, just plain text is fine, I'll sort out the formatting. All items will be vetted before they appear on here, and I reserve the right not to publish content I feel is unsuitable. Anything that is published, will have the originators name on it, giving them credit and thanks.

It's not like anyone reads the FAQ before posting anyway, why'd they bother to read a wiki?

That's my view on having it a part of the site, but seeing as you want it seperate -- I'm all for it. Since it's your fantabulous idea you should be the mod

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwks

(I sense another poll coming . . . .)

There hasn't been a poll since that guy that everyone seems to hate stopped posting random, pointless "Should Cboard change their colour to red" sort of polls.

And I think any poll is likely to start arguments, like they all seem to do. Basically when you vote you'll be voting which side you want to argue for -- rather than a wiki... makes sense

Elysia · 12-20-2007, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zacs7

I'm sure mods wouldn't have too much of a problem if you wrote something worth while of the current FAQ, and wasn't a waste of their time to add -- ie, stupid things like, "How to write Hello World by Elysia"

Why's everyone banging on me?!

Quote:

It's not like anyone reads the FAQ before posting anyway, why'd they bother to read a wiki?

Then may not, but it saves us from re-typing an explanation every time someone uses void main or scanf("%s", ...) or has horrible indentation!

We can just link to the FAQ or wiki.

I love the idea of being able to just modify it on-the-fly! Suppose I could try to submit to the current FAQ too, in case anyone's around to update it

**laserlight** · 12-20-2007, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Why's everyone banging on me?!

Because you've been recommending tabs for indentation although spaces won the last time we discussed Tabs or Spaces. I expect an epic battle in the wiki over which to recommend

Elysia · 12-20-2007, 12:22 PM

Well, tabs are convenient too, you know. One tab, one delete. And you and indent more than one line at once (at least in Visual Studio and yay for that!). Try going that with spaces.
The whole mess problem ends up because tabs and spaces are mixed. Which I why I don't recommend doing that!
If you use tabs everywhere, it will get the right indentation whatever studio or ide you use, so... If it's 8 spaces or 4 spaces or whatever, it doesn't matter.
Some editors are at fault by indenting too much - you could change that or live with it. But I prefer to just delete one tab or inserting one tab when indenting instead of typing or deleting 4 spaces. That is just so darn annoying.

**laserlight** · 12-20-2007, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Well, tabs are convenient too, you know. One tab, one delete. And you and indent more than one line at once (at least in Visual Studio and yay for that!). Try going that with spaces.

Heheh, told you to expect an epic battle. Indenting multiple lines at once with spaces is as easy as with tabs in Visual Studio.

Quote:

The whole mess problem ends up because tabs and spaces are mixed. Which I why I don't recommend doing that!

Yeah, at least the wiki can be consistent on that

Quote:

But I prefer to just delete one tab or inserting one tab when indenting instead of typing or deleting 4 spaces.

You probably missed the part where Perspective says "we're talking about editors that place x number of spaces in the file when you push the tab key" and where twomers adds "How do you delete the spaces? ctrl + backspace!!". (That said, I tend to use shift + tab when I want to delete the spaces.)

Elysia · 12-20-2007, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by laserlight

You probably missed the part where Perspective says "we're talking about editors that place x number of spaces in the file when you push the tab key" and where twomers adds "How do you delete the spaces? ctrl + backspace!!".

Ctrl + backspace deletes all the spaces, so it's kind of useless for that.
Btw, still reading the thread.

**laserlight** · 12-20-2007, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Ctrl + backspace deletes all the spaces, so it's kind of useless for that.

It probably depends on your editor. As I noted in my edit, I usually use shift + tab, but it ctrl + backspace seems to work in Visual Studio.

Elysia · 12-20-2007, 12:37 PM

Ctrl + backspaces remove an entire line of spaces in Visual Studio (at least for me). I only use tabs, though. Yes, even in forum posts when I type up code.

matsp · 12-20-2007, 12:44 PM

And if you hit the tab-key in Emacs it will indent to the correct level wherever you are in the code, and if you have a larger portion of code to indent, you use the "M-x indent-region" to indent a whole chunk of code - as long as there's no missing braces or such, it works just fine.

--
Mats

dwks · 12-20-2007, 03:13 PM

You can configure most editors to backspace up to, say, four spaces when you press backspace. That's what I do if possible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zacs7

What's wrong with the current FAQ?

Several things. First and foremost, the names are absolutely stupid. If I want to link someone to the void main FAQ, I have to go to faq.cprogramming.com, search the page for "void", and copy the link. Wiki links are much better named. somewikisite.com/cboard/Void_Main. (I know you could bookmark them, but I'm frequently on computers that are not my own, different computers each time, and that would just be a waste of time.)

It's also lacking a few things that I type up every once in a while, like an explanation of p=realloc(p,...), sizeof without parentheses, passed arrays to functions degrading (sorry, Prelude) into pointers, Turbo C, timing with portable and platform-specific functions, how to figure out whether a function is ANSI standard or not, what to do on Linux when you get an error from leaving out -lm, etc, etc, etc. But, as you say:

Quote:

I'm sure mods wouldn't have too much of a problem if you wrote something worth while of the current FAQ, and wasn't a waste of their time to add -- ie, stupid things like, "How to write Hello World by Elysia"

Quote:

It's not like anyone reads the FAQ before posting anyway, why'd they bother to read a wiki?

I know no one reads it. They do read it (some of the time), however, when we link to it. And how do we remember links like this? http://faq.cprogramming.com/cgi-bin/...&id=1043284376

Quote:

That's my view on having it a part of the site, but seeing as you want it seperate -- I'm all for it. Since it's your fantabulous idea you should be the mod

Right, I'm not the first person to suggest it. (Syntax highlighting, on the other hand . . . .)

Actually, I probably wouldn't be a good candidate for a mod. I'm not online frequently -- just a few hours straight every once in a while -- which is good for posting but not very good for moderating.

I'm just the head advocate! Right now at least.

zacs7 · 12-20-2007, 05:35 PM

If you put it like that then it's very appealing.

You could always start a 'non-official' wiki, if it worked and if the mods liked it then it could become 'official'?

12-19-2007, 04:32 PM	#1
dwks Frequently Quite Prolix Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Canada Posts: 7,629	Wiki FAQ While suggesting stuff to Elysia to include in this FAQ-like post, I thought about Wiki FAQs. That way I could edit it myself instead of just suggesting stuff to Elysia. Yes, this is a contested topic. Wiki FAQ Wiki for Tutorials http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showp...2&postcount=59 http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showp...9&postcount=14 It's like syntax highlighting. I guess there are three reasons for this thread: To ask whether there are any serious objections to a Wiki FAQ, especially one that leaves the current FAQ intact. To determine whether the moderators would be willing to install a Wiki for use as an FAQ. Failing all else, to see how many people would be willing to support a user-initiated Wiki FAQ. Notice I said "failing all else". Please, nobody start a Wiki FAQ without discussing it first -- or we'll have a flood of them. dwks' CBoard Wiki FAQ! Salem's CBoard Wiki FAQ! Elysia's CBoard Wiki FAQ! twomers'! CornedBee's! Moderators' FAQ Inc.! Associated Alliance of Users Beginning with A! (I can see CBoard disintegrating into a squabbling mass of users over this . . . .) Anyway: failing all else, why don't we start up a Wiki FAQ? It's not difficult -- there are tons of free Wiki hosts out there. It doesn't even have to be officially affiliated with CBoard -- just some members linking to it all the time and putting it in their signatures would get it started. We could try it, and if it bombs, so what. If it becomes successful, there could be a link to it from the existing FAQ, without breaking anything. (It probably wouldn't be a good idea to get rid of the existing FAQ entirely, though. http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showp...2&postcount=59) It probably wouldn't be that difficult to add a Wiki FAQ to CBoard. However, I've never tried it myself, and so I don't know how involved it would be. Perhaps there are reasons for not having one, perhaps the moderators simply disapprove of it for some reason. Perhaps they think it isn't popular enough. (I sense another poll coming . . . .) Who knows, maybe a Wiki could even be used for something other than FAQs -- for example, for posting completed projects. Long threads with updates about the program get scattered throughout the board. Stickied threads with many different programs don't work very well for updates. Ideally, there ought to be a thread with links to threads about programs. Or we could reserve a board for it. Isn't that what the Projects etc board is for anyway? But I'm getting off topic. Another reason you don't want to put me in charge of a Wiki FAQ. __________________ dwk Seek and ye shall find. quaere et invenies. "Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it." -- Alan Perlis "Testing can only prove the presence of bugs, not their absence." -- Edsger Dijkstra "The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing." -- John Powell Other boards: DaniWeb, TPS Unofficial Wiki FAQ: cpwiki.sf.net My website: http://dwks.theprogrammingsite.com/ Projects: codeform, xuni, atlantis, etc. New project: nort
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12-19-2007, 04:56 PM	#2
Daved Registered User Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,137	Another C++ forum I frequent created a Wiki for FAQ/Tutorial stuff. I liked that idea and I enjoyed contributing to it. With the size of this community, I wouldn't be surprised if an official or unofficial CBoard wiki could be successfully built up into a real resource. I prefer a wiki because most of the other options on the main cprogramming page are provided by individuals who might have differing ideas of good advice than the majority who post here, and there's very little ability to police that information. If there was one created I would likely contribute to it as well as my time permits.
Daved is offline

12-19-2007, 05:03 PM	#3
ka3 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 3	I like the idea of a Wiki FAQ. T'would be useful. My suggestion for a WiKi would be a MediaWiKi Wiki. That's what Wikipedia uses.
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12-20-2007, 04:07 AM	#4
whiteflags Registered User Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: United States Posts: 3,202	Yeah it's not really a big deal anymore. If you incorporate the existing FAQ, great but I don't think you have to. So many people talk about the FAQ being dated or needing additional information -- this would be the way to make those changes. Plus if people want to update it they can. I wonder who will be members of the wiki?
whiteflags is offline

12-20-2007, 12:44 PM	#13
matsp Kernel hacker Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Farncombe, Surrey, England Posts: 15,686	And if you hit the tab-key in Emacs it will indent to the correct level wherever you are in the code, and if you have a larger portion of code to indent, you use the "M-x indent-region" to indent a whole chunk of code - as long as there's no missing braces or such, it works just fine. -- Mats __________________ Compilers can produce warnings - make the compiler programmers happy: Use them! Please don't PM me for help - and no, I don't do help over instant messengers.
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12-20-2007, 05:35 PM	#15
zacs7 Woof, woof! Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 3,139	If you put it like that then it's very appealing. You could always start a 'non-official' wiki, if it worked and if the mods liked it then it could become 'official'? __________________ "I.T. gets the chicky-babes" - M. Kelly bakefile \| vim
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