On 08/20/2018 11:42 PM, Ali wrote:
> 
> Every now and then someone new to D comes and ask, why arent we using better forum software. 
> 

There *is* better forum software than what they're used to using. *MUCH* better. It's called Thunderbird.

:)

On 08/21/2018 05:41 PM, tide wrote:
> 
> What about if you accidentially press a button that posts the comment?
> 

Then the world ends and everybody dies horribly.

Erm...wait, I mean:

You post a follow-up and move on.

> Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature?

What for? To reinvent the wonders that non-plaintext email unleashed on the world? To add an extra tick in some marketing blurb?

Fire and Motion:
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/

(Skip the first half. Do a text search for "Fire and Motion" and read from there on.)

On 08/31/2018 03:28 PM, tide wrote:
> 
> Don't use a NNTP client, I prefer to just use a browser.
> 

For many of us it's the opposite. If you prefer to use a browser then you're free to keep using it.

> So you've never posted a snippet of code on here? I honestly doubt that. Syntax formatting is useful even if you only post 2 lines of code. No wonder these boards are the way they are with opinions like that.

Syntax highlighting of code snippets would be nice. You could bring it up at DFeed's issue tracker.

On 08/21/2018 10:18 AM, Seb wrote:
> 
> There are a few good points to move D.learn to Stack Overflow and that's actually one thing that we have talked about a few times and somehow never has happened. In the D survey there was a 2:1 "consensus" for StackOverflow.

Eeew, god no. That would be HORRIBLE.

I've used StackOverflow. It's NOT a place for asking and answering questions. It's a place where anybody who fancies themself a control freak can come play out their hall-monitor/web-moderator fantasies all while earning points toward nifty stickers(!!!) and leveling-up their self-righteousness stats to earn bigger and better tools for exerting control over others.

I'm not even joking: StackOverflow might not have intended it, but it really IS more of a mixed-reality social MMO than a Q&A tool. I'm amazed that anyone who's tried it can still take it seriously.

In D.learn: People post questions. Other people post answers. Done.

In StackOverflow: Attempts to ask/answer regularly just get shame-slapped into oblivion by any one of the hundreds (thousands?) of members mostly just there to play the meta-game.

On 08/22/2018 01:28 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 04:06:38PM +0000, Neia Neutuladh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> [...]
>> I'm a little paranoid about centralized services like Github. I'd
>> prefer a federated service for source control / project management,
>> where you could easily fork projects from my server to yours and send
>> back pull requests.  Then there would be no extra cost for hosting
>> your own vs using an existing instance.

My fingers are very tightly crossed, hoping, hoping, hoping for good things from Tim Berners-Lee's Solid:

https://github.com/solid/solid
(Introduction, docs and project repo.)

https://solid.mit.edu/
(The obligatory zero-meaningful-information "manager's introduction", but worth having bookmarked anyway.)

If we're lucky, maybe someday Solid will pan out enough to have a re-decentralized Github built on top.

> In fact, git itself was designed with such a decentralized usage pattern
> in mind.  Ironically, people have rebuilt centralized platforms on top
> of it, and even to the point of building walled gardens like github.
> 
> I don't argue against the usefulness of the features that github
> provides, but I'm also wary of the fact that it's basically a walled
> garden

/nod /nod Exactly how I always saw it.

Another frustrating irony I noticed: Git was deliberately built from the ground up for performance. In fact, that was always one of its biggest selling points, esp. in comparison to other VCSes. But then GitHub, built specifically and exclusively around Git, has only in the last couple years or so become...uhh...*NOT* completely insanely absurdly slow. Still not "fast" or lean, mind you. Just not *horrifically* slow.

It's as if GitHub was founded by people saying "Hey! Git is seriously awesome! In fact, Git is soooo freaking awesome that...'know what? 'know what we should do? We should build a service around Git that throws away ALL the things that make Git awesome! Isn't that a fantastic idea!!!"

If I were a Silicon Valley VC, that'd get my money!

>> I've been low-key thinking about making a federated github, one where
>> exporting your data is as simple as a `git clone; git submodule update
>> --init`. Probably nothing will come of it, though.

A big "same here" to all parts of this ;)

On Saturday, 1 September 2018 at 22:10:27 UTC, Nick Sabalausky  wrote:
> I've used StackOverflow. It's NOT a place for asking and answering questions.

I generally agree, but the D tag on it isn't so bad since most the annoying regulars keep away. It is more the domain of me and a handful of other regular D folks (though indeed, sometimes the annoying types step in to shut stuff down, I often will just answer it anyway (ab)using my 20,000 magic internet points to comment on closed stuff if I happen to see it in time)

On 9/1/2018 3:58 PM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> On Saturday, 1 September 2018 at 22:10:27 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> I've used StackOverflow. It's NOT a place for asking and answering questions.
> 
> I generally agree, but the D tag on it isn't so bad since most the annoying regulars keep away. It is more the domain of me and a handful of other regular D folks (though indeed, sometimes the annoying types step in to shut stuff down, I often will just answer it anyway (ab)using my 20,000 magic internet points to comment on closed stuff if I happen to see it in time)

Sometimes I get caught up in Reddit/Hackernews karma. Then, I remember that it's absurdly meaningless. Maybe if Reddit/Hackernews would let me exchange karma for a tote bag or t-shirt :-)

On 09/01/2018 07:46 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 9/1/2018 3:58 PM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
>> On Saturday, 1 September 2018 at 22:10:27 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> I've used StackOverflow. It's NOT a place for asking and answering questions.
>>
>> I generally agree, but the D tag on it isn't so bad since most the annoying regulars keep away. It is more the domain of me and a handful of other regular D folks (though indeed, sometimes the annoying types step in to shut stuff down, I often will just answer it anyway (ab)using my 20,000 magic internet points to comment on closed stuff if I happen to see it in time)

That's good to hear. Although, can't help fearing how the environment there might chance if it did become the new official D.learn.

> Sometimes I get caught up in Reddit/Hackernews karma. Then, I remember that it's absurdly meaningless. Maybe if Reddit/Hackernews would let me exchange karma for a tote bag or t-shirt :-)

Nah, man, go to Dave & Busters or Round One for your trinkets. Skee-Ball beats internet debates any day ;) (Come to think of it...why am I here and not there now? They have imports! Iiiiimmmports!!!!)

On Tuesday, August 21, 2018 8:40:32 AM MDT Steven Schveighoffer via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On the contrary, many of the regular contributors here, don't give a lick about the forum software, as long as it's primarily backed by the newsgroup server. Many, including myself use the NG server, many others use the mailing list interface. If the NG was ditched, I would have a big problem communicating, as I hate dealing with web forums.

I use the mailing list interface and have since well before the current forum interface was added. I have years worth of history available offline, and I can easily keep track of what I have and haven't read, even if I access it from separate machines (which is actually why I use the mailing list rather than the newsgroup - the newsgroup software that I used previously had no way to sync which messages were read between machines). I do use web forums for other communities, but I _much_ prefer being able to use my e-mail client to using a web interface. And plenty of other programming communities use mailing lists rather than web forums. The only real downside I see to mailing lists is that they're more of a pain if you just want to look at the content occasionally rather than actually being involved. So, they definitely favor people who follow them actively over folks who are very casual about it. But our system has the advantage of giving folks three different interfaces to the same content. So, you can choose whichever you prefer. The only major downside I see to the current setup is folks who don't understand that the "forum" is just one of several interfaces to a newsgroup, and they come in here and complain that the forum software doesn't have some feature or other that they want. Maybe some of those features would be nice, but they generally do not go well with either a newsgroup or mailing list (which a large percentage of the major contributors use), and in my experience, the features you get from a newsgroup or mailing list are more than adequate for the kind of communication that goes on here.

I would be _very_ unhappy if we ever switched to something else like discourse or if the forum software got features that resulted in folks there posting a bunch of markup or the like instead of plain text, since that would be bad for the mailing list and newsgroup users. Fortunately, since Walter is a newsgroup user and definitely seems to like the current setup, it's unlikely that it's going to be screwed up any time soon.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Tuesday, August 21, 2018 1:25:14 PM MDT Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 8/21/2018 7:18 AM, Seb wrote:
> >> some rely on stackoverflow, some have an active wiki
> >
> > There are a few good points to move D.learn to Stack Overflow and that's actually one thing that we have talked about a few times and somehow never has happened. In the D survey there was a 2:1 "consensus" for StackOverflow.
> My reservation about stackoverflow is it could go dark at any moment, and we'd lose it all. Having critical business data dependent on any third party that has zero commitment or accountability to us is very risky.
>
> With the NNTP, git, and bugzilla, we all have backups under our control.

In addition to that, SO and D.Learn are fundamentally different ways to communicate with their own pros and cons. And both are used. People ask D questions in both places, and I don't see any reason to try and get rid of one in favor of the other. Shutting down D.Learn would essentially be saying that we don't want to help people learning D (even if we're then willing to help them on SO), and it would result in an increase in questions in the main newsgroup about how to use D. We have enough problems with that already. I don't think that it makes any sense to even consider shutting down D.Learn regardless of what's going on with SO.

- Jonathan M Davis