What are some good programming QnA websites?

[Gat Pelsinger]

It feels awkward that I am the only one flooding the programming subforum, and I understand that this is not a programming oriented forum. But I am finding it hard to improve without asking questions and AI can go eat a frank. So, I am looking for some good websites or forums where I can openly ask programming related questions, where they actually don't ban me. Yes, talking about Stack Overflow. Do not recommend me that, to toxic. I asked how to install a library in C, and now they shut my mouth for a week, after being forcefully dormant for over 6 months or more because I had a asked question too noob that they would rather take harassment. Reddit is just for memes and takes too long for replies. Quora takes a billion years to get replies and I am not very familiar with it to start there.

[wasab]

You should go on learning platforms with a discussion forums. People there are mostly beginners. They won't be as harsh but then again... there won't be experience folks to help you out either.

 

Places like code academy and ect, assuming they have a place for discourse and discussion. There are also many discord channels for beginner programmers. 

Edited February 6 by wasab
Straight to the point

[LAwLz]

I went through your post history and to be honest, it seems like the issue isn't "toxic users" but rather how you ask questions and what questions you ask. I'd even go as far as to say that you are the toxic one based on statements like this:

On 1/30/2024 at 6:19 AM, Gat Pelsinger said:

Ok I seriously don't get anything. If you know how to multiply 2 matrices using fmadd, why don't you take like 2 mins and write the function for me?

You are demanding that people do things for you in a rather ungracious way. "Just do the work for me"

 

Your questions are confusing and when people try to help you by trying to get more information out of you (because your questions are often incomplete making it impossible to help you), you become rude or just stop responding and make a new thread.

 

 

 

A lot of your topics seem to just be a stream of consciousness that doesn't make much sense, and you ask A LOT of questions.

A lot of your questions could be answered by putting the thread title into Google and clicking the first link. Just take the question posed in this thread.

"How to install a library in C".

 

Not only does this question not make any sense (because you don't install C libraries), but if you search that exact line you get multiple articles written about the subject. The first one that appeared when I searched for it was in fact a Stack Overflow thread.

The second link I got was a seemingly good article on Medium.

 

 

 

 

Stack Overflow has a great article about how you should ask questions, and in general if you follow that then people aren't toxic and you will get help. That applies to all forums by the way, not just this one.

 

You can't expect people to put a ton of effort into helping you when you seem unwilling to even do basic things like Googling your question before you ask it. Forum users aren't your personal slaves that exist only to help you. They help you in their spare time if they feel like it, and it is in your best interest to make their task of helping you as easy and painless as possible. 

[Beerzerker]

Must agree with the above.
You'll only get out of it what you are willing to put into it yourself, as in your own effort to do it. 

If you're not willing to do it yourself, mistakes and all you'll never learn anything and it becomes a pointless exercise in trying to help.

In itself, there is nothing wrong with asking questions.
That's one way to learn but I can promise you any programmer out there doing this for a living won't get paid for long if someone else is doing all the work for them and the boss figures out who's doing, or not doing what.
However as said, the way you ask them, if it's rude is something that will put people off and let you burn over it.
No one anywhere is "Obligated" to help if they don't want to, be it here or anywhere else.

Don't know how you'll take all this but as they say in the military - "I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear, I'm going to tell you what you need to hear".
The hearing part is on you and you alone. 

[Gat Pelsinger]

@LAwLz @Beerzerker

 

I said they banned me on Stack Overflow, this forum is wholesome :). I don't normally put all the work on others. I try my best to figure it out myself and when I just can't, I never just dump the code onto others, well I do but, I also give them hints of where the problem is occurring. If you saw my history correctly, then you would know this. That matrix one was an exception, where I was really tired and exhausted, and upon that, I just asked the guy to rewrite a function which takes at most 10 lines of code.

 

And on Stack Overflow, first of all, none of the existing threads helped me and suited my environment, and all I asked, is how to install GMP and MPFR libraries for C, because the existing documentation is for Unix based systems and I am on Windows. Is that bad to ask? I didn't just go like "hey uh I was creating this uh a big uh, Minecraft clone, and the rendering and world generation algorithm seems messed up and I wonder if you could take a look at it" and proceed to dump 20,000 lines of code without any context or "hey I was trying to setup up Vim, I did like stuff and then more stuff but now I am getting errors, I don't know what to do, can you tell me what all I need to do from the beginning?" I don't do that. 

 

The people at Stack Overflow are programming CHADS. They would whip my ass if they found I am using Windows or I failed to setup SSH on Linux (obviously exaggerating but maybe not honestly). The only threads I find which were posted by newbies and actually got helpful replies where 10-15 years ago when the site and its people were new. Why am I telling you all this? Just head over to Google and see its autocomplete after typing "Why is Stack Overflow". And the proceed to read the 20 million results that Google finds.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I said they banned me on Stack Overflow

Instead of writing Stack Overflow off as toxic because you were banned, maybe you should consider why they banned you. 

 

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I don't normally put all the work on others.

Honestly, after going through your post history I do actually think you do that.

There are a ton of threads where you clearly didn't even do a Google search and read through the first link, and a lot of threads end up like conversations where you keep asking more and more questions and for further elaborations. Dealing with people like that is very exhausting. What takes 2 minutes for you to ask might result in an hour of work for someone else. It's especially annoying if you ask the same question several times as indicated by this thread when the first reply is:

"We went over this in your other thread"

 

 

 

It's bad manners to do things like this as well:

 

 

You're acting very entitled.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

And on Stack Overflow, first of all, none of the existing threads helped me and suited my environment, and all I asked, is how to install GMP and MPFR libraries for C, because the existing documentation is for Unix based systems and I am on Windows. Is that bad to ask? I didn't just go like "hey uh I was creating this uh a big uh, Minecraft clone, and the rendering and world generation algorithm seems messed up and I wonder if you could take a look at it" and proceed to dump 20,000 lines of code without any context or "hey I was trying to setup up Vim, I did like stuff and then more stuff but now I am getting errors, I don't know what to do, can you tell me what all I need to do from the beginning?" I don't do that. 

I just searched "install GMP" on Google and the third link I got was a guide on how to do it in Windows.

When I searched "install GMP windows" 3 out of the top 4 results were all detailed instructions on how to do it, and the one non-instruction gave a very clear hint as to why the documentation seems to be targeting GNU/Linux systems. Because it is a GNU/Linux-specific program. One of the three links was a link to Stack Overflow where someone gave detailed step-by-step instructions on how to install it on Windows.

 

 

[Beerzerker]

5 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

@LAwLz @Beerzerker

 

I said they banned me on Stack Overflow, this forum is wholesome :). I don't normally put all the work on others. I try my best to figure it out myself and when I just can't, I never just dump the code onto others, well I do but, I also give them hints of where the problem is occurring. If you saw my history correctly, then you would know this. That matrix one was an exception, where I was really tired and exhausted, and upon that, I just asked the guy to rewrite a function which takes at most 10 lines of code.

 

And on Stack Overflow, first of all, none of the existing threads helped me and suited my environment, and all I asked, is how to install GMP and MPFR libraries for C, because the existing documentation is for Unix based systems and I am on Windows. Is that bad to ask? I didn't just go like "hey uh I was creating this uh a big uh, Minecraft clone, and the rendering and world generation algorithm seems messed up and I wonder if you could take a look at it" and proceed to dump 20,000 lines of code without any context or "hey I was trying to setup up Vim, I did like stuff and then more stuff but now I am getting errors, I don't know what to do, can you tell me what all I need to do from the beginning?" I don't do that. 

 

The people at Stack Overflow are programming CHADS. They would whip my ass if they found I am using Windows or I failed to setup SSH on Linux (obviously exaggerating but maybe not honestly). The only threads I find which were posted by newbies and actually got helpful replies where 10-15 years ago when the site and its people were new. Why am I telling you all this? Just head over to Google and see its autocomplete after typing "Why is Stack Overflow". And the proceed to read the 20 million results that Google finds.

That's good to hear, I know it can be difficult but stick with it, you'll get it.
I'm into XOC and like everyone else doing it, I started off knowing exactly nothing about it and frankly I'm still learning about it to this day.

I too had to ask questions along the way about things such as system prep/insulation, what voltages to use for "X" amount of CPU speed and so on, then take the answers I got and apply them which paid off for me in terms of WR's and the like. 

No, it's not bad to ask as long as you don't ignore the responses you get and I've seen that before in places. With that, just keep asking questions and hopefully you'll get the answers you're looking for but be sure your questons can be understood instead of folks going "WTF" over it.

[wasab]

I used to ask very n00b questions on stack overflow too back in the days. I got lots of downvotes and was linked programming books which I was told to read instead. That said, I never got banned. You have to do more than just posting annoying and n00bish questions that made little sense. 

Edited February 7 by wasab
Straight to the point