Is it allowed to start a Thread in the Sub-Forums for Discussion's sake?

[Zvoni]

Hi folks,
couldn't think of a better thread-title.

Quick and painless:
Is it OK to start a Thread in any of the (Sub)-Forums just for discussion's sake?

current case is:
I've been asked to display my "technique" handling different Databases without having to change my Frontend-code

I'm asking because:
1) it's not third party
2) it's not FPC-code (per se! though there might be some snippets)
3) in my opinion, the correct place would be Databases (any of the two), AND NOT HERE.
4) Others might benefit from it
5) Peer-Review would be welcomed. Might learn something i missed

If allowed, any suggestion for a Thread-Title-Prefix?
"[TUTORIAL] How to...." sounds so pretentious... 

FWIW, i would have some 3-4 topics concerning tips and tricks in SQL ready-to-post

[MarkMLl]

Sounds reasonable to me, particularly since you've got enough experience under your belt to be fairly trustworthy.

I'd suggest that labeling it "Proposed HOWTO" would be appropriate, particularly if any consensus could be collated into a monograph in the spirit of other open-source HOWTO documents.

MarkMLl

[Zvoni]

Sounds reasonable to me, particularly since you've got enough experience under your belt to be fairly trustworthy.

I'd suggest that labeling it "Proposed HOWTO" would be appropriate, particularly if any consensus could be collated into a monograph in the spirit of other open-source HOWTO documents.

MarkMLl

High praise.
Thank you, Mark.

I'll wait a bit, for/if maybe one of the moderators chips in

EDIT: After thinking about it, i might recind this proposal, since the "wiki" might be actually the correct place, though i have no idea how to add/edit something on the Wiki (do i need an account on the Wiki?)
Thoughts?

[Чебурашка]

Hi folks,
couldn't think of a better thread-title.

Quick and painless:
Is it OK to start a Thread in any of the (Sub)-Forums just for discussion's sake?

current case is:
I've been asked to display my "technique" handling different Databases without having to change my Frontend-code

I'm asking because:
1) it's not third party
2) it's not FPC-code (per se! though there might be some snippets)
3) in my opininion, the correct place would be Databases (any of the two), AND NOT HERE.
4) Others might benefit from it
5) Peer-Review would be welcomed. Might learn something i missed

If allowed, any suggestion for a Thread-Title-Prefix?
"[TUTORIAL] How to...." sounds so pretentious... 

FWIW, i would have some 3-4 topics concerning tips and tricks in SQL ready-to-post

Why not the forum admis to create new child boards named for example "[Howto]", or "[Techniques]" or "[Recipes]" whenever senseful? For example in the context of Database maybe this is senseful, or in the case of web programming, or Programming in general for the topic Error handling.

[Zvoni]

Why not the forum admis to create new child boards named for example "[Howto]", or "[Techniques]" or "[Recipes]" whenever senseful? For example in the context of Database maybe this is senseful, or in the case of web programming, or Programming in general for the topic Error handling.

See my Edit.
The "wiki" might be the correct place.
OTOH, i have no idea how you would/could have a discussion on the wiki.
The Wiki is IMO for tested/evaluated/confirmed "procedures" that work

Ah, let's wait what the moderators think

[Чебурашка]

The "wiki" might be the correct place.

Of course the wiki would be good, but also the forum is fine, because it allows the discussion that might end up in some wiki pages.
I tought about child boards only to keep things separate in forum.

[440bx]

Is it OK to start a Thread in any of the (Sub)-Forums just for discussion's sake?

I cannot answer your question but, personally, I welcome any methods/techniques an individual has figured out over the years.  That's a good way for everyone involved to gain knowledge.

[MarkMLl]

Of course the wiki would be good, but also the forum is fine, because it allows the discussion that might end up in some wiki pages.

I agree. Even though there have been better mediums (a Usenet-style discussion group with a reader that handles threading properly) a forum like this encourages people to quote a limited amount of text that they consider problematic and suggest an improvement.

It also- and I consider this important- allows people to say "I propose this change..." and solicit opinions rather than just bulling in and making a mess that others have to clear up... in the same way that this is a good place to discuss issues before lobbing them into the ever-growing bug nest.

MarkMLl

[Чебурашка]

Of course the wiki would be good, but also the forum is fine, because it allows the discussion that might end up in some wiki pages.

mumble mumble... I tryed to imagine the process of discussion and I changed my mind, probably Zvoni's idea of going with the wiki is better.
The idea of growing up something to be later materialized into a wiki page is less feasible IMO.

A possible process could be:

1 A person creates wiki page(s) and notifies by posting in the forum.
2 Others propose on the forum changes/critiques/analyses and so on .
3 The same person modifies the wiki page(s) (and maybe notfies on forum?).
4 Process goes back to 2 (possibly endlessly)

Possible alternatives could be related to who can author the wiki page(s) in order to make original writer life easier and make the wiki more community oriented.

[Zvoni]

Of course the wiki would be good, but also the forum is fine, because it allows the discussion that might end up in some wiki pages.

mumble mumble... I tryed to imagine the process of discussion and I changed my mind, probably Zvoni's idea of going with the wiki is better.
The idea of growing up something to be later materialized into a wiki page is less feasible IMO.

A possible process could be:

1 A person creates wiki page(s) and notifies by posting in the forum.
2 Others propose on the forum changes/critiques/analyses and so on .
3 The same person modifies the wiki page(s) (and maybe notfies on forum?).
4 Process goes back to 2 (possibly endlessly)

Possible alternatives could be related to who can author the wiki page(s) in order to make original writer life easier and make the wiki more community oriented.

chewing on it......
you do realize that we run the risk, that a user lands on that wiki-page, which might contain "suboptimal" information (because it's still in discussion!)?
Personally for me, any "Wiki" (in another Forum i'm member of it's called "CodeBank" or "code it better") should contain "information" (general information as well as code) that has been tested and works!

How many threads do we find here "I've downloaded the sample-project from the Wiki, but can't get it to run" (Yeah, i know rarely the code on the Wiki-page is at fault, but you get my drift).
Myself, i've run afoul on that, because a crucial information was missing (Don't use cmem at the same time as heaptrc).

[Чебурашка]

you do realize that we run the risk, that a user lands on that wiki-page, which might contain "suboptimal" information (because it's still in discussion!)?
Personally for me, any "Wiki" (in another Forum i'm member of it's called "CodeBank" or "code it better") should contain "information" (general information as well as code) that has been tested and works!

A possible rule could be:

Page(s) in wiki are created at inception.
Later these pages are modified only when there is a agreed and reasonable step content quality (or a mistake).

This is sounds similar to the concept of <product> release.

[MarkMLl]

mumble mumble... I tryed to imagine the process of discussion and I changed my mind, probably Zvoni's idea of going with the wiki is better.
The idea of growing up something to be later materialized into a wiki page is less feasible IMO.

This sort of thing has been discussed by many /many/ people in the past, and if anything the collaborative situation is worse these days than it was 25 years ago.

Patchy support for message threading in discussion contexts has always been an issue, simultaneous work on a collaborative document have always been an issue, and tracking changes in the context of a malleable document have always been an issue.

NNTP etc. gives each message a unique ID, but local servers and reader software don't index it so you can never rely on two people having xrefs that match. TBL's original definition of HTTP was far more interactive than most people realise, and some early implementations had e.g. a "patch" method that could update documents in situ (Larry Wall was just getting his teeth into this area when he got sidetracked by Perl). And there's been at least one project which used Heckel's algorithm to present a graphical display of how a document had been edited https://iphylo.blogspot.com/2009/09/visualising-edit-history-of-wikipedia.html Not to mention the mythical Xanadu...

But the best that appears to be available to the broader community is Git, with its various value-adding hosting services.

MarkMLl

[Martin_fr]

Hi folks,
couldn't think of a better thread-title.

Quick and painless:
Is it OK to start a Thread in any of the (Sub)-Forums just for discussion's sake?

current case is:
I've been asked to display my "technique" handling different Databases without having to change my Frontend-code

The forum is not limited to questions (or announcements).
If you have something of interest to share then you can do that. If it leads to feedback then ok, if not also ok.
Obviously, discussing how to to in c++ is not likely a topic for this forum. But database related content can be. (and so can be code design methods)

Anyway, go ahead. Boards could be programming/general, programming/database or other/miscellaneous. If misplaced moderators can move it.

As for "is the topic acceptable for the forum", start it and we shall see. If it really isn't it might get locked, but it shouldn't have consequences for your account (if your topic isn't about selling jewellery, watches or fake id... )

[Zvoni]

Here we go: https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?topic=61262.msg460400#msg460400