i was just reading through some threads and thought it would be cool if there was a sticky with links to old threads that just have a lot of general info/cool discussion in it. Every once in a while there will be 3-4 deep magicians that come in and blow my mind with the inner workings of programming languages usually coming up with optimization differences that I won't know for 10 years. I find these discussions fascinating and thought others might be too. It would be cool if there was a single place where we could link to them for people to look at. Maybe there's already something like that, maybe staying up for 24 hours was a bad idea, but maybe the sticky is a good idea. Just thought I'd suggest it.

I am against this. I suggest you use the site's bookmarks feature, or an external bookmarking or tagging platform like Delicious or Instapaper. Or perhaps try and start an article over on a wiki. At least until V5 is released.

First, I'm not willing to do the legwork of digging up these 'interesting' threads (and what defines interesting anyhow?), nor am I willing to do the legwork of vetting those threads for inclusion in a sticky, or maintaining the thread. A sticky thread doesn't make for a good medium for that kind of information repository -- a wiki would. And bookmarking systems would solve the problem of the vast differences in what constitutes 'interesting.'

Second, I have a hunch that a decent percentage of these 'interesting' threads would constitute discussion that is inappropriate for the beginners forum in general.

You might try pitching this idea in another forum, perhaps General Programming or Game Programming. Or simply waiting for V5, which should have some solutions to problems like these.

Quote:Original post by jpetrie
I am against this. I suggest you use the site's bookmarks feature, or an external bookmarking or tagging platform like Delicious or Instapaper. Or perhaps try and start an article over on a wiki. At least until V5 is released.

First, I'm not willing to do the legwork of digging up these 'interesting' threads (and what defines interesting anyhow?), nor am I willing to do the legwork of vetting those threads for inclusion in a sticky, or maintaining the thread. A sticky thread doesn't make for a good medium for that kind of information repository -- a wiki would. And bookmarking systems would solve the problem of the vast differences in what constitutes 'interesting.'

I'm not asking anyone to go back and look through all the past threads. It would just be nice to have some place where I can read a bunch of intelligent programmers discussing programming rather than having to look through 50+ posts where one intelligent programmer helps another with a problem.

The sticky itself wouldn't even have to be updated by a moderator. Just let people post links to cool discussions.

An example of a cool discussion would be something like the "C++ is a bad language for game development, what should replace it?" roundtable at GDC. I didn't understand a lot of what was said, but it gave me a couple cool things to look into and follow up on after GDC that expanded my knowledge base and got me more excited about programming in general. Moreso it's just fun to read/hear people who are both passionate and knowledgeable about their chosen field talk amongst each other.

Quote:Second, I have a hunch that a decent percentage of these 'interesting' threads would constitute discussion that is inappropriate for the beginners forum in general.

While I would agree that the topics might not be beginner level, I think beginners would find that kind of discussion very cool. Having one in either section would be cool imo.

Quote:
The sticky itself wouldn't even have to be updated by a moderator. Just let people post links to cool discussions.

Sure it would. Even if submissions didn't have to be routed through me, I'd still need to monitor the thread, it's effectively the same thing (plus, eventually the thread will retire and I'd need to unlock it to allow people to post again, et cetera).

Either way though, while I agree such a resource could be interesting or useful, it doesn't jive with how I want this (particular) forum run. This is a forum for beginners to ask questions in -- not for others to post tutorials or spark advanced discussions in; there are other venues for that sort of thing.