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King Cobra

macrumors 603
Original poster
Mar 2, 2002
5,403
0
Very simple concept: Programmer to programmer discussion

Programmers could offer others recommendations as to what software/applications to use for their coding (recommendations may include: JGrasp, Jext, NetBeans, Eclipse, Xcode, etc.) and/or have intelligent debates as to the advantages/disadvntages of certain programming applications. Other forum topics could include help in newbie programs, in which a newbie Java programmer can't get a program to work right, and others could assist in find out the error.

Direct example of what I just said: Let's say I'm a newbie programmer for Java, and I have this code going:

import javax.swing.JOptionPane;

public class Pops
{
public static void main (String[] args)
{
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog ("Program complete."); // displays a pop-up
}}

and I can't figure out from using my compiler what is wrong with the program. I would post the thread with the whole program code in the Programming forum...and a more skillful programmer could respond to my thread with something like this:

"You have to put a null as the first parameter in the JOptionPane. Also, put a System.exit(0); at the end of your main to terminate the program properly."


Comments/feedback?
 

MoparShaha

Contributor
May 15, 2003
1,646
38
San Francisco
I think this is a great idea. I'm always seeing people posting in random forums for programming help. A nice, central source would be very good. This parallels the Web forum in principle, so it seems feasible.
 

bousozoku

Moderator emeritus
Jun 25, 2002
15,603
1,761
Lard
I requested it a while back when they were asking for suggestions. I'm also looking for a Graphic design area.
 

PlaceofDis

macrumors Core
Jan 6, 2004
19,241
6
i think we need an iPod only discussion forum because i am tired of seeing this talked about all over the place...but this is a great idea as well i love having things organized so the more forums we have the more organized everything can be really, but then again i am a neat freak
 

Sun Baked

macrumors G5
May 19, 2002
14,937
157
Is King Cobra offering to moderate and keep the ultra caffenated programmers under control late at night? ;)
 

crenz

macrumors 6502a
Jul 3, 2003
619
27
Shanghai, China
Why should there be a programming forum on MacRumors.com? There are tons of programming forums out there, with lots of knowledgable people. I'm a programmer myself, and Macrumors.com is one of the last places I'd turn to to get programming info... I usually consult much more specialized sources that can give me detailed information.
 

King Cobra

macrumors 603
Original poster
Mar 2, 2002
5,403
0
Well, first off...Sun Baked, who told you? U undacova o'somethin'?

Second, crenz...now you're making my idea look foolish.
 

bousozoku

Moderator emeritus
Jun 25, 2002
15,603
1,761
Lard
crenz said:
Why should there be a programming forum on MacRumors.com? There are tons of programming forums out there, with lots of knowledgable people. I'm a programmer myself, and Macrumors.com is one of the last places I'd turn to to get programming info... I usually consult much more specialized sources that can give me detailed information.

Who is to say that people here won't give detailed information? In the past, we've solved quite a few little programming problems. If you don't care to participate, no one would force you. ;) Besides, there aren't that many Macintosh programming forums--one more wouldn't hurt.
 

Blackheart

macrumors 6502a
Mar 13, 2004
938
0
Seattle
I, for one, would take part in the forum. I'm currently writing Java in Xcode with interface builder, though I would like to learn Objective-C. A place to go for help would be very nice.

Also, a place to go for Macintosh specific programming would be a plus.
 

Doctor Q

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
39,777
7,498
Los Angeles
crenz said:
Why should there be a programming forum on MacRumors.com? There are tons of programming forums out there, with lots of knowledgable people. I'm a programmer myself, and Macrumors.com is one of the last places I'd turn to to get programming info... I usually consult much more specialized sources that can give me detailed information.
Which other programming forums are you referring to, crenz?
 

Mantat

macrumors 6502a
Sep 19, 2003
619
0
Montréal (Canada)
Only problem:
You will have to have a forum for every language, else it will be super messy! I would be very happy if there was such a forum, I just dont see how pratical it could be. One can get faster and better help when sending mail to specialize mailing list. And for beginers, 99% of their question can be solved by googling a bit. So allowing people to ask questions about programation would only allow them to be lazy and not look by themselves...

On the other hand, it could be very interesting if the subjects were at a higher level, let say talk about the advantages of using Torque instead of Hibernate, talk about the use of Struts, etc... I would be super glad to participate to these conversation!
 

King Cobra

macrumors 603
Original poster
Mar 2, 2002
5,403
0
Mantat said:
Only problem:
You will have to have a forum for every language, else it will be super messy!

The way I invision the forum is: One general programming discussion to start. If enough topics get thrown into the forum, then we could dedicate subforms to program-language-specific topics (Java, C++, Objective-C, UNIX, etc.) as needed.

But if a lot of programming topics show up in the first programming thread, and the rate at which new topics are added increases rapidly (any other Calculus A or Calculus B wizzards in here), then there could be a Computer Programming Languages category, and each of the most widely discussed languages could have their own forum in the category. And, of course, the general programming forum will stay in the category as well.



I would be very happy if there was such a forum, I just dont see how pratical it could be.

Well, when I first had the idea of posting this programming topic that you've been reading, I figured that we could discuss what applications would serve best for creating programs (JGrasp, Jext, NetBeans, Eclipse, Xcode, etc.). The practical usage of this would be so that, for example, newbie programmers learning a programming language would learn it faster in one application than in another application. Specifically, Eclipse points out where you entered the wrong Syntax only a second or two after the mistype is made...whereas JGrasp only tells you upon compile time.



And for beginers, 99% of their question can be solved by googling a bit. So allowing people to ask questions about programation would only allow them to be lazy and not look by themselves...

For me, I couldn't find any resolve to the exception designated to "StackOverflow"s in Java that I kept getting from one of my programs. (Note to self: Don't extend from a GUI class a parent class that created it and the JFrame.) Though, depending on the person and their basis of searching for answers, internet search queries can be used often. So let them search online and have one of the results turn up here....as the programming forum grows, there will be more questions/solutions posted, which will make the forum more profitable to those using internet search queries.
 

Doctor Q

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
39,777
7,498
Los Angeles
GeeYouEye said:
I agree completely, but I don't think separate forums for each language is necessary.
Right. One forum. It would have threads for different topics, some language-specific, some not.
 

crenz

macrumors 6502a
Jul 3, 2003
619
27
Shanghai, China
Doctor Q said:
Which other programming forums are you referring to, crenz?

If I post a question in a programming forum or community, it's usually something rather obscure and tricky I can't figure out by RTFM or googling. Although, sometimes these rather obscure things turn out to be blindingly obvious after the first replies trickle in ;). When googling for stuff, mailing lists archives are the number one resource with helpful information for me.

Let's see. For Perl questions, I go to PerlMonks. Quite number of people contribute there who earn their living programming Perl or are actually contributing to Perl itself. Also, I can get cross-platform answers here. (I want my programs to run on Windows and Linux and other Unixes also.)

For wxWidgets questions (this is the cross-platform GUI toolkit I use), I ask questions on their mailing list. Again, the developers of wxWidgets are on that list so usually I get well-founded answers there.

For MS Virtual C++ development I didn't have the need yet to consult a forum. The MSDN docs usually are enough.

I don't do much Java. I learnt it by myself, from a book, when I was paid to do a Java programming job and I could answer all the questions that came up during the project using search engines.

If I have to fix PHP scripts (I hate that), I usually consult the PHP docs. No, it's not a forum, but it helps.

I haven't done much Cocoa programming yet, so I can't really comment on that. I found a number of questions answered looking throught the docs at Apple Developer Connection. If I would encounter problems I cannot solve, I probably would go search on CocoaDev, it's a Wiki with discussions. There's also Apple's CocoaDev mailing list. O'Reilly has interesting articles at MacDevCenter. There's a German Mac OS X development forum. Obviously, most of you are not interested in German-speaking forums, so how about the OmniGroup mailing list, CocoaDev Central or CocoaObjects. That's just from a bit of googling; I thought it might be handy to have a list of places to go to when I do more Cocoa development :).

And of course, there's the almighty Expert's Exchange covering a huge variety of languages and environments.

Hope that helps. Not that I am against a programming forum at MacRumors.com, by the way, I just don't see much point in it except for newbie questions maybe (and even for these, I tend to go to forums that are "specialized" on the language/environment in question).
 

GorillaPaws

macrumors 6502a
Oct 26, 2003
932
8
Richmond, VA
I thought I'd try my hand at learning to program maybe last September, I searched the web and was VERY intimidated by the atmosphere at most of the cocoa forums (it was several months back so I don't remember specific sites). Learning to program cocoa for the Mac can be a very scary experience when first starting out, you are told to first learn c, then learn objective c, (that's a lot of studying just to learn how to write a simple simple program). I think most newbies to programming want to be able to write a simple, nice looking (i.e. uses an aqua interface) program within the first 4 hours of starting, so they can produce something and say "see, it works!" I bought a copy of oreiley's "Learning Cocoa with Objective-C" and really enjoyed it, but when I upgraded to xcode some of my projects wouldn't compile, and I didn't know why (still don't). Since this may be one of the best books for beginers (and they haven't written an xcode version yet), I just kinda gave up. A macrumors programming forum would be an awesome idea, mainly because of the friendly and helpful atmosphere of the community, and if experienced cocoa programmers are as helpful to beginners as the rest of the community is to helping switchers (giving them reassurance and advice) there's a good chance that the macrumors' programming forum could evolve into one of the best mac programming sites out there. As far as the laziness factor goes in the above post, I feel that people should not be so critical of beginners (maybe this is why there should be a newbie programming sub-forrum). If you are writing your first objective-c program and it does not compile because your forgot the ; at the end of the line, it's not going to be any fun "googling" your code for several hours sifting through super-technical content to get your answer. More than likely you will give up. Another sub-forum could be for programming games. I have no experience with this, but I think I would really enjoy learning to write simple freeware cocoa games (but I have no idea where or how to start). A macrumors programming forum needs to happen (it should've a long time ago).
 

GeeYouEye

macrumors 68000
Dec 9, 2001
1,669
10
State of Denial
There's already a programming forum on MacNN, and while it's by no means the most popular forum there, it still gets a decent amount of traffic. I've found it very helpful on several occasions, and there's also other topics besides questions, such as "Favorite project that went nowhere?" which spawned some discussion.

Another thing to consider is the ambiguity regarding programming questions currently. Do they go in Software Discussion, or Web Design and Development? Especially if it's for something like Perl. Or development of a web browser.
 
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