Re: Interesting embedded Ada news

[Marc C <mc.provisional@gmail.com>]

On Tuesday, April 16, 2013 7:38:28 AM UTC-5, Hibou57 (Yannick Duchêne) wrote:

> I don't believe stackoverflow is a so much place. Look at this question  
> for an example:
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15837081/ada-function-vs-procedure
> Some people voted to close it, and never come back to revise a decision  
> and vote to re-open. The question was actually a real question, but was  
> closed as not being a question. That's not only because it's Ada, that an  
> issue with stackoverflow in the large.

StackOverflow participants do have a bias against questions being asked by individuals who have obviously not made even the most cursory effort to answer a question on their own. It is a programmer oriented Q&A site, so it is expected that the programmer asking the question has expended some effort, and then reached a point where some help is needed to clarify an issue of legitimate confusion or uncertainty. And yes, the potential answerers determine what they consider "legitimate".  (Homework questions are acceptable, so long as the questioner is upfront about it, and is asking for guidance, rather than a solution.)

As one of those who voted to close that particular question (Marc C), SO gives us only a limited set of reasons for the closure--"Not a real question" was the closest to "While grammatically a question, the fact that it takes less than 30 seconds to Google 'Ada function procedure' for an answer means Not Really" that was available.

That the question was in regard to Ada had nothing to do with voting to close it.  Along with me, two of the other four who voted to close it are well-established responders to Ada questions on StackOverflow.  Unlike some other more general-interest programming forums, anti-Ada bias is rarely seen on SO.  Just refer to Thomas' link, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ada, to see the breadth and response to Ada questions that have been posted.

> Better a Usenet than something like stackoverflow.

The Ada portions of the various sites (Stack Overflow, comp.lang.ada, Reddit - http://www.reddit.com/r/ada, Google+, LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=114211) each have their own "personality" and community of users. These complement one another, nothing is gained by dissing other sites. On more than one occasion I've answered a SO question by recommending that the question be brought here to comp.lang.ada, especially if it's of the "language lawyer" type.

I regularly run into individuals for whom StackOverflow, including the ever-growing collection of Ada questions, is their primary source of programming assistance. StackOverflow and the rest of these sites are valuable resources for both the established and learning Ada community, and enhancing the ability to find information on them is obviously a good thing to do.

Marc A. Criley
Moderator, Ada sub-reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/ada)
StackOverflow contributor (http://stackoverflow.com/users/38706/marc-c)