Locked. I honestly don't know why anyone would bother contributing to Stack Overflow at this point. It seems to basically be the hosting ground for answers to hard factual questions answered in most documentation/materials elsewhere, and a virtual wasteland of locked/deleted questions that are actually of use in the non-black and white world we live and work in. This real world ambiguity seems like it is completely intolerable to the mods at SO.
Not sure how the rest of you feel but in my mind if the answer is black and white, the question was probably bad.
> "It seems to basically be the hosting ground for answers to hard factual questions answered in most documentation/materials elsewhere"
That's exactly what StackOverflow is meant to be.
I feel like I'm the only one who appreciates what StackOverflow is trying to achieve here - to be the place to document hard, solid facts - nothing more. If I wanted to read commentary and opinions on programming, there's always HN or Slashdot.
It is off-topic, though, for StackOverflow. By rights, the question should be on the Programmers StackExchange site, where it would actually have relevance. (On the other hand, ProgrammersSE isn't exactly a hospitable environment itself, so migration might not be such a great idea. Which may, in fact, explain the fact that it was locked rather than migrated when ProgrammersSE came out of beta. It was supposed, originally, to be more about the programmer than the programming, but it seems to have lost its way.)
Exactly. I've desperately needed answers to a handful of questions in the last 2 weeks alone that were all locked. I think unless you can quote an error message there's a good chance it will be locked. Didn't know server hard drive space came at such a premium. Honestly what good does it do to lock a question? I can see wikipedia wanting to groom their site to maintain some credibility and focus to achieve high overall quality with limited editing resources. But Stack Overflow? Give up the power trip already. How has Joel not created Subjective Overflow already?
My experience with SO is this: Google for something, see a relevant SO link, click it. Page loads, question covers exactly what I'm looking for. First 3 comments on the question are about how the question doesn't belong on SO, or is too broad, or wrong, or whatever. The first answer contains the information I need.
I don't really contribute to SO for the same reason I don't really contribute to Wikipedia - the editors seem so hellbent on enforcing standards and rules that they throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Stackoverflow has always been that way, this kind of questions were just more tolerated at the beggining.
But I don't get why is this a problem? Stackoverflow is for pragmatic questions and is great a it. If you want discussion there are other communities in stackexchange, such as 'programmers'.
It was locked fifteen months after the question was asked...I think its prudent to protect a significant discussion from the noise that it will inevitably generate as people discover it via long tail in years to come
It should be easier to mark a question as duplicate or incorrectly tagged with version of language or framework, but aside from that, I don't agree. Without that site, I'd be lost.
Last year a young blind man who recently got a degree in computer science did an AMA on Reddit. It was one of the most inspirational things I've read on the Internet. Looking back at it now makes me feel ashamed that I'm not enjoying life (or programming) as much as this guy clearly was
Anecdote: In college I earned a few bucks working as a tutor. One of my jobs was to assist a blind student. I think they were an EE major. I wasn't tutoring, though; I was dictating an engineering textbook onto cassette tapes.
The school was in a converted office building. I was given a portable tape recorder (this was back in the paleo-Eighties, when analog ruled the Earth) and I would go up to the top of the stairs by the fire exit and sit in the landing to do my recordings. It was a reliably quiet place. (Also a good place for a mid-day nap.)
The book was, of course, filled with equations. At first I tried to read them aloud and that's OK for some things but some were just complicated. That's when I was given a special drawing board. It was a clipboard with rubber padding and clear plastic sheets. I used a stylus to write on the plastic, pushing down into the rubber padding to leave an indentation.
I hope technology has a improved a bit since then.
As mentioned in the SO question, the head of Google's accessibility team, T. V. Raman [1], is blind. I feel like this speaks volumes about the opportunities for disabled programmers on its own, and, though a bit cliche, reinforces the thing I love most about engineering--in many ways, this line of work is as close to a pure meritocracy as one can get. I hope Mr. Raman would agree that it seems fitting that someone who is blind himself would be sensitive to the needs presented by blind and low-vision users of computer software, and I'm happy he's around to provide guidance for accessibility features for a company like Google.
Is there a video of a blind person programming somewhere? Even though I see the description, I still don't understand how someone can possibly program without being able to see.
I've wondered about this too, since I can't really picture myself doing any sort of programming without my vision. My problem is juvenile arthritis which came on when I was 12 and will probably leave me with another 8-10 years or so before the pain will be too unbearable to continue. I'll be around 40 then.
I really don't wanna program "Captain's log, supplemental" style. Besides, how does one do CamelCase with speech-to-text?
It's because of that and because I'm getting tired of tech, I've started to wean off programming into something more artistic, but won't require as much dexterity.
> Besides, how does one do CamelCase with speech-to-text?
My guess would be tight integration with the IDE and knowledge of the language being used; most of the time, the editor should be able to figure out that chained, non-keyword or existing identifier words should be CamelCase. You'd need some manual way to disambiguate when it gets it wrong.
You need either an amazing memory (to remember all the code), or a Braille screen that supports all those annoying signs like { }.
The downside is going to be no code overview ... to help with that the braile reader should support | like ribbins: this way you can set the space/tab symbol to | (in programs like Vim).
This will allow you to more easily follow indentations.
After thinking and writing about it, I'm more concerned about other applications, cause to write code you just need a text-editor. Browsing, Office, ... is going to a far more painful experience...
Does anyone know the productivity level of a blind programmer compared with an average programmers? I'm pretty curious about this for a while now. If my sight suddenly gone, can I actually retain my current productivity level with rigorous training and suitable development tools?
As a blind programmer I would say that I can be every bit as productive as my sited peers with comparable experience levels for back end development although not nearly as productive for user interface work. If you suddenly lost your site I’m not sure how well you could program, the way I use a computer is significantly different from how I understand sited people to use a computer. I also assume the way I generate a mental model varies from most programmers and don’t know whether you could adapt existing mental models for use with our site or would have to start from scratch. If you lost your site you would want to focus on things like basic independent living skills and the ability to use a computer for general internet browsing before you attempted to learn to use screen reading software well enough to continue programming. While you could probably obtain a similar level of efficiency after losing your site it would be a process that would take several years at the least.
[+] [-] zainny|13 years ago|reply
Not sure how the rest of you feel but in my mind if the answer is black and white, the question was probably bad.
[+] [-] yen223|13 years ago|reply
That's exactly what StackOverflow is meant to be.
I feel like I'm the only one who appreciates what StackOverflow is trying to achieve here - to be the place to document hard, solid facts - nothing more. If I wanted to read commentary and opinions on programming, there's always HN or Slashdot.
[+] [-] stan_rogers|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nanidin|13 years ago|reply
I don't really contribute to SO for the same reason I don't really contribute to Wikipedia - the editors seem so hellbent on enforcing standards and rules that they throw the baby out with the bathwater.
[+] [-] pablasso|13 years ago|reply
But I don't get why is this a problem? Stackoverflow is for pragmatic questions and is great a it. If you want discussion there are other communities in stackexchange, such as 'programmers'.
[+] [-] danso|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] renanbirck|13 years ago|reply
I sometimes notice this pattern on other Stack Exchange sites: non-technical questions, with some rare exceptions, tend to get closed/deleted.
[+] [-] hakaaaaak|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danso|13 years ago|reply
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fpxzk/blind_since_the_...
Here he answers someone how he can program while blind
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fpxzk/blind_since_the_...
[+] [-] jamesbritt|13 years ago|reply
The school was in a converted office building. I was given a portable tape recorder (this was back in the paleo-Eighties, when analog ruled the Earth) and I would go up to the top of the stairs by the fire exit and sit in the landing to do my recordings. It was a reliably quiet place. (Also a good place for a mid-day nap.)
The book was, of course, filled with equations. At first I tried to read them aloud and that's OK for some things but some were just complicated. That's when I was given a special drawing board. It was a clipboard with rubber padding and clear plastic sheets. I used a stylus to write on the plastic, pushing down into the rubber padding to leave an indentation.
I hope technology has a improved a bit since then.
[+] [-] sootzoo|13 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._V._Raman
[+] [-] ktt3ja|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eksith|13 years ago|reply
I really don't wanna program "Captain's log, supplemental" style. Besides, how does one do CamelCase with speech-to-text?
It's because of that and because I'm getting tired of tech, I've started to wean off programming into something more artistic, but won't require as much dexterity.
[+] [-] danielbarla|13 years ago|reply
My guess would be tight integration with the IDE and knowledge of the language being used; most of the time, the editor should be able to figure out that chained, non-keyword or existing identifier words should be CamelCase. You'd need some manual way to disambiguate when it gets it wrong.
[+] [-] Qantourisc|13 years ago|reply
After thinking and writing about it, I'm more concerned about other applications, cause to write code you just need a text-editor. Browsing, Office, ... is going to a far more painful experience...
[+] [-] ck2|13 years ago|reply
Stackoverflow feels like it's turning into wikipedia sometimes.
I thought it was an excellent question for SO's knowledge pool.
[+] [-] neurostimulant|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jareds|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] entropie|13 years ago|reply