@jdonaldson, but what is a “simple question” and how to detect it? For somebody it is a simple question, for somebody not.
Why we need forum then? It’s stange.
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I wrote up these guidelines, which are based off of recommendations from discourse: http://community.haxe.org/t/faq-guidelines
(I separated this topic from Javascript (haxe target) not auto-executable possible? so we can have a discussion without hijacking the original thread.)
Not sure about stack overflow, personally I like having everything in the same place (here 
).
I agree with @dmitryhryppa, it’s not simple for people to figure out where to post,
and it’s not like we’re drowning in topics right now 
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Ok, that’s fine with me then.
If we dont want people asking techinical/complicated questions here, at least open a “stackoverflow links” thread.
Whenever some of us ask a Haxe question on SO, this person can link it here.
It will help this person to get quick answers…
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I vote for discussions here
Wasn’t there already a request a sub for “beginners”.
I don’t see why this wouldn’t work for advanced users either.
If you go to gamedev.stackexchange .com it’s laden with low tier questions on how to do basic things. And there are multiple of similar questions. While mods and users try to flag things and point to duplicate questions it doesn’t always work enough to keep the site from being ridden with too much of the same.
I think the problem there is that they don’t really have a central place where beginners can go, obviously gamedev.stackexchange isn’t meant for one language or one engine. However I do think same will happen to this place if more beginners start to stream in ( although im sure that would take forever considering it’s mainly the same people showing up in the haxe scene, but whatever ).
Something like the haxe cookbook is imperative to counter this problem. A place for common haxe knowledge.
I know gamedev isn’t the main point of haxe but I’d like to point out this:
Unity3D has something like : https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/s/scripting
This was done much later down the road when the forums were already booming with “HOW DO I DO X AND Y” questions and to this day a lot of people do not realize those pages exist. Because Google takes you places you really don’t want to be if you truly want to learn the basics.
If you want to reduce low quality posts or lots of noob questions there needs to be a central place for tutorials, documentations. And all of this needs to be pointed out on the front page of this forum so it’s clear as day.
Alternatively you have to create something like a new sub domain like haxehelp.haxe .org or whatever and run a secondary forum there.
( also I like IRC very much, and while it’s crowded it usually acts like a dead place to be. It’s a graveyard in many instances. Discord communities are far more active, not that we should use Discord, just saying that for people seeking help there should be such medium too)
Don’t forget that this is not just q&a forum, this is really a community.
I would like to see everything goes to here. If someone is bothered from questions he think are “too begginer-ish” which are confined to a beginners category, that’s a different problem.
I, personally, would love to see questions from the kind even I can answer.
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Haxe suffers from low visibility, so personally I think any question that does fit stackoverflow’s format should go there. Every such question posted here instead is a wasted opportunity of making Haxe being seen by what’s probably the biggest programming community out there.
The primary focus of this community should be discussions, open questions, non-technical stuff and what not. In short all the things that get closed on stackoverflow, but are very important for having an actual community.
should be discussions, open questions, non-technical stuff and what not
I’m fine with using Stackoverflow, but I have two questions regarding that:
- @back2dos Your example is kind of vague. “Discussions” and “open-questions” could be anything. Could you elaborate a bit on them?
- Would it make sense (or possible) to have a read-only subforum that would index the stakoverflow questions here?
Regarding #2, I don’t think it’d make sense (and I guess it’d be kinda messy) to sync both ways (this forum to Stackoverflow and vice versa) and maybe not even fetch the body of the posts, but only the title/URL Having a subforum dedicated to stackoverflow with a sticky HOWTO post explaining how/why with a link to stackoverflow, followed by the stackoverflow links, would be nice. Not sure if there’s a plugin for that though.
Do people check the questions about a language they don’t know?
The problem is that haxe help will never be completely centralized. Something new will come along and folks will want to use that.
Stackoverflow is still dominant, and I know folks who’ve gotten interviews and jobs solely from their SO profile. Ive seen cases where a language community (Rlang) started emphasizing SO and it greatly increased the language activity.
It’s good to have our own place for freeform discussion. This current discussion is exactly what should be here.
I don’t want the forums to be overly restrictive. We can let newbies ask whatever they want. I just think there’s significant benefits for funneling language questions with straightforward answers to SO.
I had not considered using StackOverflow as a form of visibility. I have found Discourse to be much friendlier for asking questions, writing answers, and continuing the discussion as things evolve.
Is there a Haxe specific section on StackOverflow, or is it based on tags?
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There is no haxe specific stack overflow, it’s tag based. Here’s a link: Newest 'haxe' Questions - Stack Overflow
If the priority is to put Haxe-related programming questions on Stack Overflow, a good starting point would be to contribute a pull request to add “haxe” as a supported syntax for the language highlighter they use: https://github.com/google/code-prettify#for-which-languages-does-it-work
The tag description could also use some updating
You raise an important point. Someone focusing on Go doesn’t care about PHP questions. Haxe however is different in that regard. If for example you tag a question as [haxe] [javascript] chances are that at the end of the day a few more JavaScript developers will at least have heard of Haxe.
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Being vague is kind of the point here, as that complements the clear cut form of objective and answerable questions that stackoverflow is for.
What’s wrong with the tag description?
If you visit haxe.org, or the Wikipedia page (Haxe - Wikipedia), I believe they do a better job of introducing Haxe.
I would believe, too … but I know from own experience that usually you end with more questions than answers. F.e. looking for JS … haxe_org … learn more … Writing Haxe Web Applications … hmmm … suppose we want to extend some existing project … found sth familiar … jQuery, click it … and? no luck, only API description, no examples… go back… jQueryExtern link … and again … no single example. No info about externs (why they are needed, how use them).
You can have luck and find cookbook’s JS section (should be linked in learn) … and see more meaningfull article about adding DOM element.
It’s basic but for beginner every non usual element can be strange, lack of explanation creates entering barrier, a steep learning curve.
- Why I should use that instead plain JS or usual jQuery?
- “Remember that jQuery in Haxe is simply an extern” - I know haxe nedds it for sth - this is the line with import in code below?
- “You need to add a script-tag that links to jQuery in the HTML file.” …eee, we have haxe code here, isn’t it? Hmm, maybe it will be needed later. YES, it is, in this place should be sth like “Externs are definitions used by compiler to know how to use external libraries functions in type safe manner. All of your haxe code during compilation will be checked, your parameters (values passed to external functions) type must match to definitions. Values returned by external code is also type checked. Bad code simply won’t compile!”
- What is this static main for? Each haxe class must have it? It’s explained enywhere? NO
- new JQuery in new jQuery … WTH?
- I couldn’t have a chance to view /manual/target-javascript-external-libraries.html - it looks a bit like “tips and tricks to write externs” - not simple use cases.
- Again, why I should use it? Maybe typescript will be better?
Of course I know all answers, this is just teoretical beginner “entry point”.
For almost every JS lib examples you’re cloning repository and running npm to see live example.
In haxe world is a way harder - raw code, repos without compiled bins (html+js) to run after cloning, no screenshots, no descriptions at all.
SO is ok, but why https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47064589 had to be asked? Just because google query “hxcpp build.xml linker flags” didn’t get proper result? Where is this better job? It’s not enought to write Linker_md - it has to be findable - should be processed into doc pages with proper tags and keywords. For that reason resources like Introduction · GitBook and github_com/r3d9u11/haxe-basics should be linked somewhere in docs, manual. Good, non trivial example with commented code is in some cases more valuable.
Internal resources should be better hyperlinked, too. In docs there is almost no “enought state”.
There is a lot of resources, any kind and target but it’s hard to find them - github page (community modified) with links with descriptions to resources (articles, repos) - taggable/filterable/searchable like cookbooks?
I had to remove some links (limit 2 links for newly registered user)