New Forum Suggestion

ares23 · Post by **ares23** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:38 pm

This isn't a feature request for Ogre itself, rather for its forums.

I've worked with the Irrlicht 3d engine before and one of the best elements of its community was a forum called "Code Snippets" where people could post entire classes or just snippets of code (obviously) that do something cool.

This was a great resource for ideas and practical solutions to common problems and would be a good addition to the Ogre forums IMHO.

Just my 2 cents. Later! ;]

Chris Jones · Post by **Chris Jones** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:42 pm

The wiki is usually used for these types of things

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:15 pm

But the wiki is troublesome to actually do anything on... It would be cool if there was a Code Snippets topic!

CaseyB · Post by **CaseyB** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:37 pm

twilight17 wrote:But the wiki is troublesome to actually do anything on...

How so?

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:38 pm

Just having to edit it, and add new stuff..

warmi · Post by **warmi** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:40 pm

twilight17 wrote:But the wiki is troublesome to actually do anything on... It would be cool if there was a Code Snippets topic!

Actually wiki is much better for this sort of thing ...

Would you rather scroll thru a long thread looking for some piece of code or just use a hierarchical topic based menu on Wiki ?

ares23 · Post by **ares23** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:03 pm

The wiki should be for vetted, approved code that is almost guaranteed to work. It should also be accompanied with HowTo text. The forum is better for shorter code snippets, or even entire classes.

Plus there is no reason to have to scroll through a thread to get to the code. Every new post of code would have its own thread, so it'd be the first post.

_tommo_ · Post by **_tommo_** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:10 pm

In the wiki articles aren't ordered by time, so it's difficult to know wich new snippets have been added.

And you can't talk easily with the author, to comment or other!

I think that this is a good idea, so the forum could have Showcase for big projects, and Code Snippets for simple helpful things

Post by **Praetor** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:35 pm

This is what the In Practice section does. I would say it is usually for systems larger than "snippets" but there have been snippets there as well. Usually the result is either an addon project or a suggestion to put it on the wiki.

nullsquared · Post by **nullsquared** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:27 pm

I've used/read the Irrlicht Code Snippets forum as well, and it seems neat. Every day you'd see new snippets and stuff (usually small, concentrated things), and they're neatly arranged as threads.

But then again, I like the Ogre wiki use, too

Post by **haffax** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:40 pm

IMO the wiki clearly is the place for such things. Not only does it already have such a section, it is nicely structured, way better than an unstructured list of threads. It better fits with the goal of the two tools forum and wiki. Forum is a place for discussion and interactive help, wiki is knowledge base.

With now fifteen subforums, the forum is already clogged.

The wiki has a recent changes page, it is easy to keep yourself informed about latest changes.

ProfesorX · Post by **ProfesorX** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:59 pm

I also think the wiki is better for code snippets, it is only a matter of creating a new wiki page, wich serves as index of snippets. And, if the original author is gone for whatever reason, anyone can update the code

[edit]
I did't know there is already a wiki index of snippets. Now it is only a matter of adding more snippets

[/edit]

Post by **sinbad** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 7:58 pm

Yep, feel free to post 'WIP' snippets in the forum but the wiki is definitely the place most of them should be. A forum is ok, but it's inherently 'revisionist' and finding the last version of anything is a pain in active threads. In a wiki, everyone can tweak things and only the latest version is shown. You can also cross-refer and format things much more neatly.

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:15 pm

warmi wrote:Would you rather scroll thru a long thread looking for some piece of code or just use a hierarchical topic based menu on Wiki ?

Go here: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... um.php?f=9

That's what I want.

Brainshack · Post by **Brainshack** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:40 pm

So whats the point about using the Wiki for this? You can do anything you want in a forum in the Wiki too.

Post by **haffax** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:41 pm

twilight17 wrote:
warmi wrote:Would you rather scroll thru a long thread looking for some piece of code or just use a hierarchical topic based menu on Wiki ?
Go here: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... um.php?f=9

That's what I want.

How is it better than this, exactly?

Post by **betajaen** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:27 pm

haffax wrote:How is it better than this, exactly?

I agree. It's much neater, doesn't mess up the forum search and the code can be documented using real tools and real HTML.

And if needs a thread, it usually has one - for example; BetaGUI.

denreaper · Post by **denreaper** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:38 am

I kind of like the idea of having a separate forum for this purpose. Being able to check the latest code snippets in one organized place would be a way for people to learn about random stuff which could help them later on. Maybe it would work to give each code snippet thread some sort of custom tag which could be searched using the search feature instead though? This way code snippets could be returned without needing a separate forum. For example, "__code_snippets__" placed somewhere in the thread which is a code snippet. It would probably be hard to get people to follow this, but it's just an idea.

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:46 pm

haffax wrote:
twilight17 wrote:
warmi wrote:Would you rather scroll thru a long thread looking for some piece of code or just use a hierarchical topic based menu on Wiki ?
Go here: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... um.php?f=9

That's what I want.
How is it better than this, exactly?

I like it more.

Post by **haffax** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:28 pm

twilight17 wrote:I like it more.

If you want to convince us that such a forum is a good idea, you have to make a case for it. This doesn't suffice.

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:33 pm

haffax wrote:
twilight17 wrote:I like it more.
If you want to convince us that such a forum is a good idea, you have to make a case for it. This doesn't suffice.

Ok. Not my thread anyway.

Post by **sinbad** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:47 pm

denreaper wrote:I kind of like the idea of having a separate forum for this purpose. Being able to check the latest code snippets in one organized place would be a way for people to learn about random stuff which could help them later on.

... which is exactly what the wiki does already. Still not seeing the benefit of a forum over that, a forum can't be retrospectively organised when it gets big, finding the latest version of something is a pain, it's inherently less useful as a sample repository. I for one need far more convincing on this and I'm not alone.