This community is:

A general purpose programming community for English speakers

Language specific posts like:

and ide specific posts like:

are not general purpose. Posts like that ruined /r/programming for me, and this community seems to be going down the same road. I’m here to read about programming concepts that can be applied to any/most languages, not patch notes for 10 different Js frameworks posted by karma farming bots. If I wanted to read posts like that, I’d have subbed to /c/javascript…

Do you agree with me that they should be removed from /c/programming, and limited only to their respective communities? Or have I missed the point of this community?

  • Ategon@programming.devM
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    1 year ago

    One of the things about this community is theres no dedicated mods yet (both snowe and I are admins) so it hasnt been getting as much moderation on its posts unless the posts get reported

    If someone wants to mod it let me know

    I definitely think it should be more general topics and the people collecting could be handled by random which I can adapt to fit that (since it isnt being used in its current form) + language specific things in the language channels

    • Shareni@programming.devOP
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      1 year ago

      What do you mean by collecting, what would fall under that category?

      Edit:

      this?

      Just a “programming” community where all things have place can be a very good place to “collect” people and filter them into their nieche interests. Link to other communities, crosspost.

      • Ategon@programming.devM
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        1 year ago

        getting people who may not know where otherwise to post to then nudge them towards a more specific community for future ones

        an example of that would be the python post that was given as an example in the original post where they just asked how to do something in python here and since they were new they just did it in c/programming. Then someone told them about python and the next python help post they did they made in the python community instead

        edit: yeah

        • Shareni@programming.devOP
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          1 year ago

          What about adding a guideline over here along the lines of:

          if your post is specific to only one programming language or tool,
          it should be something that's interesting,
          otherwise check out our [community list] or [local community search engine],
          and if the community exists, post over there to get better feedback`
          
          (add a list of programming related communities in the sidebar)
          (maybe also write it as faux code, and turn it into ascii art,
          it would help catch attention)
          

          reasoning

          • Ategon@programming.devM
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            1 year ago

            That could work but one thing that would have to be figured out with that rule is what is categorized as interesting content as it tends to be pretty subjective so would be difficult to enforce if thats where the line is drawn

            For adding relevant programming communities in the sidebar pretty much every community in the instance is relevant but could be the general topic ones like game dev, web dev, etc.

  • Dragonseel@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    I think both types of community can have a value. Being general as in “all things can fit here” and in “only things that are general to programming”. I have no experience in community management so take my words with a huge grain of salt.

    The communities on Reddit were huge. That lead even in the smaller more specialized communities to have a big volume of posts. I am mainly interested in game-dev and Rust-Lang, and even there were so many posts that do not fit what I am interested in. But would splitting the communities make it better? Maybe I could then chose to ignore some of the posts, but also the hurdle of posting stuff, the and to enter these communities for people might get higher. As a newbie, (either to programming or just to talking on these platforms) you might be intimidated to post to a group of experts. And it is much easier to find. Just a “programming” community where all things have place can be a very good place to “collect” people and filter them into their nieche interests. Link to other communities, crosspost. Hopefully people will then start to post the more specific stuff in the more specific communites on their own.

    I feel like Reddit made it harder over time to form a “meta-community” of multiple subreddits. Though I can’t right now exactly pinpoint why that is.

    So again I see benefits to both approaches. Maybe we just need both. Make a “computer science” community, advertise it on this community, and make it focussed on concepts, papers and the generic programming stuff. Filter the “patch notes” stuff out from there. And this community here could then be the catchall “landing-page” thing. There will be suff for everyone, but not all of it. There will be some general posts and some specifics. And hopefully we can find methods that people find their more specific communities if they have more specific stuff to share or ask.

    Sorry, I got a bit rambly in my stream-of-conciousness post here. Hopefully you can get anything from it. I am not sure :)

    • Shareni@programming.devOP
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      1 year ago

      I think both types of community can have a value. Being general as in “all things can fit here” and in “only things that are general to programming”.

      I didn’t think of that.

      I have no experience in community management so take my words with a huge grain of salt.

      Same here

      the hurdle of posting stuff, the and to enter these communities for people might get higher. As a newbie, (either to programming or just to talking on these platforms) you might be intimidated to post to a group of experts.

      I think there should be a balance. It might not be ok to lmgtfy people in communities like /c/learn-programming, but it should be fine in others. Just to enforce basic etiquette like googling for a few minutes, or reading the community rules before posting.

      So again I see benefits to both approaches. Maybe we just need both. Make a “computer science” community, advertise it on this community, and make it focussed on concepts, papers and the generic programming stuff. Filter the “patch notes” stuff out from there. And this community here could then be the catchall “landing-page” thing. There will be suff for everyone, but not all of it. There will be some general posts and some specifics. And hopefully we can find methods that people find their more specific communities if they have more specific stuff to share or ask.

      Great points. /c/computer-science does sound really nice.

      What about adding a guideline over here along the lines of:

      if your post is specific to only one programming language or tool,
      it should be something that's interesting,
      otherwise check out our [community list] or [local community search engine],
      and if the community exists, post over there to get better feedback`
      
      (add a list of programming related communities in the sidebar)
      (maybe also write it as faux code, and turn it into ascii art, 
      it would help catch attention)
      

      That would limit automated style patch notes to affected communities. So “node version x patch notes” is not fine, but it would be fine to post “node finally supports tail recursion optimization” and just link the patch notes.

      People could redirect posts that should be in specific communities, so for example:

      “How do i x in python?” -> /c/python, “Should i x in Js” -> /c/javascript, “What first language/editor?” -> goto /c/learn-programming, “how do i keep warm in the winter?” -> /c/intellij

      That would help grow those communities, and over here those posts would be filtered out by both active and hot.

      It would be fine to post like: “emacs does something really cool”, “c# binary makes atoms look fat!”, “does rust make lemmy go FASTA?!?!!”

      And it would preserve the general mood with posts like: “fav programming music?”, “programming and humility”, “is chatgpt cheating?” as they’re not specific to any language

      Sorry, I got a bit rambly in my stream-of-conciousness post here. Hopefully you can get anything from it. I am not sure :)

      right back at you, and thanks, this was fun

  • kakes@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Seems like this is confusion about whether it’s a “general-purpose community” or a “community for general-purpose content”.

    Imo, any programming related content should be allowed. I don’t see the reason to say “Python posts should be in the Python community” without also saying things like “Compiler posts should be in the Compiler community” or what-have-you. I think the point is to have this be a catch-all, “general-purpose”, community.

    (Granted, I’m not at all invested one way or another, but that’s how I interpret it as-written.)

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I’m curious what sort of content you think would be general enough to fit your criteria. I tend to disagree though.

  • canpolat@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I don’t know what the mods think about your arguments, but I agree that posts that already have a community should be posted on their respective communities and not here. There may be exceptions where certain language/tool related thing may be relevant for a larger audience, but those are probably rare cases.

  • ruffsl@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I’m here to read about programming concepts that can be applied to any/most languages

    Wouldn’t !programming_languages@programming.dev already be a more appropriate community for content about programming concepts applied to languages? If that doesn’t cover all the Computer Science concepts you’d like to read about, then it might be worth suggesting the creation of more specific CS communities, such as: (software) !architecture, !algorithms, !data_structures, etc. and then just subscribe to those to customize and curate your feed ?

    10 C tricks experts don’t want you to know about (photo, video, neckbeard
    typescript beta patch notes
    not patch notes for 10 different Js frameworks posted by karma farming bots

    I don’t think your clickbait here is fair, as the original post you linked to doesn’t really have a similarly sensationalized title, nor anything about neckbeards. Chauncey Rose, King of Neckbeards, would be sadly disappointed… :( You may be envisioning the term programming a bit narrower than most, as programmers often deal with dependency management, documentation lifecycles, passing down tribal knowledge, juggling infrastructures, things that go way beyond just language concepts. It should also be noted that there is no karma on Lemmy, as vote counts are attributed to post and comments, not individuals. AFAIK, there’s no public API to query another user’s total score of fake internet points.

    how to x in python
    should I x in Js
    intellij and docker are eating my rams, pls help

    That is a fair criticism, as generic or low quality questions should be discouraged from being blasted across the (main) !programming community. I don’t mind when someone puts forth a well researched issue with an extensive write up and is merely probing or polling the community at large for insight or opinions, but if it’s just a “How do I do X?” questions prompting “You should do Y!” answers, then those posts should be relegated to dedicated Q&A communities or appropriate stack exchange sites.

    • ruffsl@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Regardless, I still feel like each instance really needs a !main equivalent, a default space for general submissions where posts can be cross posted to or from more specialized communities, providing exposure to a wider audience, while also letting link aggregators do what they do best by allowing users to rank what they think is relevant for the particular community, or general to the instance at large in this case.

      Instead of naming this kind of community explicitly as !main, I like how !programming has been used for this instance instead, giving it a familiar title that reflects the instance that is it’s namesake, while still encouraging this catch-all like community to remain in scope. For example, !meta would be unsuitable for this given it is already reserved for self reflection of the instance, much like Meta Stack Exchange.

    • ruffsl@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      One thing that could help improve this is better first-class support for cross-posting, integrations such as selectively merging discussion threads from communities on the same instance, to avoid fragmenting discussions, e.g. like how Hacker News can merge topics that reach mega-thread status. Posters could choose or be force to enable such cross posting for certain communities. E.g. if you want to post to the general !programming community, you first have to put forth a little effort to categorize your post by cross-posting from the most relevant community first. Although, this could be more akin to #tags, that may scale better with multiple matching categories.

      Another feature that could help would be more advance moderation tools, such as post migration. Instead of closing or deleting offtopic posts, moderators could migrate posts with existing discussion threads to more appropriate communities on the same instance, e.g. just like how Discourse can re-categorize and manage user posts. I’m not sure how the logistics like the handoff between communities could work or how votes should be retained, but it’s just a thought.

    • Shareni@programming.devOP
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      1 year ago

      Wouldn’t !programming_languages@programming.dev already be a more appropriate community for content about programming concepts applied to languages?

      Thanks, didn’t know about that one

      I don’t think your clickbait here is fair, as the original post you linked to doesn’t really have a similarly sensationalized title, nor anything about neckbeards.

      It looked cool, so i made a joke and maybe more people clicked it. Also, when the author says you prolly shouldn’t do this, it makes sense that the experts don’t want you to know about it.

      You may be envisioning the term programming a bit narrower than most, as programmers often deal with dependency management, documentation lifecycles, passing down tribal knowledge, juggling infrastructures, things that go way beyond just language concepts.

      I’m here to read about programming concepts that can be applied to any/most languages

      None of those concepts are language specific.

      It should also be noted that there is no karma on Lemmy, as vote counts are attributed to post and comments, not individuals. AFAIK, there’s no public API to query another user’s total score of fake internet points.

      That’s really nice, didn’t know that

      That is a fair criticism, as generic or low quality questions should be discouraged from being blasted across the (main) !programming community. I don’t mind when someone puts forth a well researched issue with an extensive write up and is merely probing or polling the community at large for insight or opinions, but if it’s just a “How do I do X?” questions prompting “You should do Y!” answers, then those posts should be relegated to dedicated Q&A communities or appropriate stack exchange sites.

      I agree completely.

      What do you think about adding a guideline over here along the lines of:

      if your post is specific to only one programming language or tool,
      it should be something that's interesting,
      otherwise check out our [community list] or [local community search engine],
      and if the community exists, post over there to get better feedback
      

      reasoning> It should also be noted that there is no karma on Lemmy, as vote counts are attributed to post and comments, not individuals. AFAIK, there’s no public API to query another user’s total score of fake internet points.

  • heartlessevil@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Or have I missed the point of this community?

    Yep, this part. “General purpose” means it’s not specific. In a “general purpose programming language” do you get compiler errors for using FP or OOP?

  • Ategon@programming.devM
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    1 year ago

    If I run a poll for the community on what we should do what should the options be?

    currently thinking

    1. move topic collection into a new community
    2. move general programming concepts into a new community
    3. keep both in this community
    • ruffsl@programming.dev
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      1 year ago
      1. move topic collection into a new community

      I think it would be hard to concretely categorise what should go into a new hypothetical !main(?) vs !programming given such a !main should still fall under the scope of the theme of the instance’s name, programming. It could worsen the indecision for first time posters, or those trying to understand the applicable nuance between the two. Perhaps the community could keep with the classic montra “I know it when I see it” to keep posts on brand.

      Also, IMO, trying to change the general default community from !programming to something else would be like trying to close the barn door after the horse has bolted, or like trying to change horses in midstream, given !programming is already our largest community.

  • RonSijm@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I think the lines are pretty blurred about what is “general purpose programming” and what is “Language specific”

    For example, if you have a post about C#, the community inheritance chain would be something like: /c/programming -> /c/dotnet -> /c/csharp or
    /c/programming -> /c/dotnet -> /c/VisualStudio

    Once you start getting more specific communities, the parent “general purpose” communities would become dead / unsorted / random

    In reddit people would often post their stuff somewhere in the tree of communities, and would often get a response of either "This community is too niche, you’ll probably get more responses in {Community Node up the tree} OR “This community is too general, you’ll probably get more expert opinions in {Community Node down the tree}”

    It would be an interesting idea if it would be possible to set up Lemmy like this, as a node tree of communities… So if you subscribe to /c/programming, all posts in communities that are more specific would show up in the parent communities. So for example if you’d want to see all dotnet stuff you subscribe to /c/dotnet, and you’d see posts from all children (/c/csharp, /c/VisualStudio) - if you have more niche interests you only subscribe to /c/csharp.

  • BenLloydPearson@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I agree with this, and I think it may be fairly easy to catch most of this with some simple conventions:

    1. If the post is primarily about a specific language, it belongs in that respective community.
    2. Posts about frameworks, libraries, tools, etc. should either go to their respective communities, or if none exists, the nearest language community.

    This would create some gray area for things like the last link in your list, but it should catch the majority of problems. I wonder if this could be resolved with a (new?) Q&A community for people to ask questions that are specific to their situation. That would enable c/programming to focus more on conversational topics.