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After spending the last few weeks with VS.NET and using it in a production environment I have some good tips and bits of advice for other people. Things that I banged my head against for awhile before figuring out, things which are hidden away but are really useful etc.
For instance when working with ASPX files VS.NET goes a bit AWOL if you put the HEAD section into an include file. It took me a good few days to figure that out and I want to spare other VS.NET users the pain.
So my idea is: What about having a FAQ or "Tips, Tricks and Ways with [technology/product name]" article associated with each technology on CP? So for .NET there would be one associated FAQ and for C++ and for HTML etc. This can then be updated by people sending in tips, advice etc. to CP.
Sure, I could write this article and stick it in the .NET area, but it would be lost amongst the others and beginners may bang their heads before finding it.
I guess it is a "Start here..." kind of idea.
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Sonork ID: 100.9903 Stormfront
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Sounds like a good idea. If you write the article, Chris can then promote it like he did with Michael Dunn's C++ FAQ article.
Michael
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Michael P Butler wrote:
Sounds like a good idea. If you write the article, Chris can then promote it like he did with Michael Dunn's C++ FAQ article.
just turn on the spotlight "why don't ya." Not sure if I can live up to those kind of expectations.
But I will do that, thanks. The next step would be allowing people to send in tips and advice which someone can decide on whether to include in the FAQ or not.
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Sonork ID: 100.9903 Stormfront
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Paul Watson wrote:
The next step would be allowing people to send in tips and advice which someone can decide on whether to include in the FAQ or not.
There is this wonderful modern invention called e-mail. If you include an email link on your article people will send you stuff and then you can include them in the next revision of the FAQ.
Michael
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Michael P Butler wrote:
There is this wonderful modern invention called e-mail.
Is that like SOAP? How do I use this "e m a i l"? Do I need to be on that thingy, the intermep or internaut or something?
Can you come over and install it for me pls?
Michael P Butler wrote:
. If you include an email link on your article people will send you stuff and then you can include them in the next revision of the FAQ
*ugh* that is so mundane. We have all this awesome technology and you want me to rely on email and the Update scripts. *ugh*
Yeah yeah, you just really know how to turn my idea into a run of the mill article don't you? *ugh*
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Sonork ID: 100.9903 Stormfront
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If you want a challenge, you could help Chris convert the site over to .NET. Then you could write a C# web-service that process the FAQ suggestions and then adds the text into the article database.
Of course the system would reject any updates with the word "gotten".
Michael
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You, Michael, are a genius.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
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This sounds very interesting. BTW have you ever thought about writing some analysis/design articles? I'm sure people (including myself) would find that very useful! Maybe you could include a sample design template document to get people started.
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Andrew.
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I like the idea!
The C++ FAQ is great, and each of the technologies presented at CP are worthy of similar treatment.
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I'm going to second Michael's suggestion.
I'm then going to pester you daily as to why it isn't up. Then, when it is up, I'm going to post a whole bunch of 'how do I install Linux' questions at the end of it.
Mwahahahaha.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote:
I'm then going to pester you daily as to why it isn't up. Then, when it is up, I'm going to post a whole bunch of 'how do I install Linux' questions at the end of it.
*looks at forum name*
*looks at chris' post*
*looks at forum name again*
Sounds like Chris has some ranting to do! :-P
James
Sonork ID: 100.11138 - Hasaki
"Smile your little smile, take some tea with me awhile.
And every day we'll turn another page.
Behind our glass we'll sit and look at our ever-open book,
One brown mouse sitting in a cage."
"One Brown Mouse" from Heavy Horses, Jethro Tull 1978
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Chris, could you add the article ratings in the "My Articles" section?
Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil (Don't you just love that anagram craze?)
Checkout GUIDGen.NET
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Nice idea.
But better than the ratings I think the view-count would be better.
The view count is a proper statistic.
The rating is a useless statistic.
Nish
My miniputt high is now 29
I do not think I can improve on that
My temperament won't hold
www.busterboy.org
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Its not *entirely* useless.
It only becomes useless when you have childish games being played with it. Unfortunately that usually happens when you have new authors posting.
Take Michael Dunn's articles for an example; most of his are highly rated and they deserve it. The really bad part is that I don't need a rating to know whether his articles are good; because I know they will be
James
Sonork ID: 100.11138 - Hasaki
"Smile your little smile, take some tea with me awhile.
And every day we'll turn another page.
Behind our glass we'll sit and look at our ever-open book,
One brown mouse sitting in a cage."
"One Brown Mouse" from Heavy Horses, Jethro Tull 1978
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Mike Dunn himself was the victim of mass-down-voting.
His article on namespace extensions was down-voted for reasons other than quality.
Nish
My miniputt high is now 29
I do not think I can improve on that
My temperament won't hold
www.busterboy.org
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But it still stands we don't need a rating for his articles to know they are good
I hope Mike doesn't mind us singling him out of all the great authors here
There aren't many ways to stop voter fraud without inconvienencing Chris or the user though. Off the top of my head
1) Only registered users can vote, and only vote once per article. This requires that a new table be created to match up userids with votes on an article.
2) When registering for CP an e-mail gets sent to the registering person to verify e-mail address and to change the e-mail address a confirmation is sent. Both must be acknowledged by going to a URL from the e-mail with a unique code in the URL.
This doesn't stop someone from registering 100 new users for voting but it forces them to go through more work to do it.
I faced the same problem on another website where I had both ratings and a poll. I was more concerned with the poll though because some of the information gleaned from it lead the organization into different directions.
James
Sonork ID: 100.11138 - Hasaki
"Smile your little smile, take some tea with me awhile.
And every day we'll turn another page.
Behind our glass we'll sit and look at our ever-open book,
One brown mouse sitting in a cage."
"One Brown Mouse" from Heavy Horses, Jethro Tull 1978
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James T. Johnson wrote:
But it still stands we don't need a rating for his articles to know they are good
Yeah. Mike has written some great articles. In my opinion he is CP's second best author, the best being of course Joseph M Newcomer. Nobody nears Joe, nobody.
And James, I think the solution to proper rating is to have a rating panel of annually selected 10 people.
Nish
My miniputt high is now 29
I do not think I can improve on that
My temperament won't hold
www.busterboy.org
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Oh yes, I think I've read all of Joe's articles I can't say I've done that for any other author, except my own of course.
Nish [BusterBoy] wrote:
And James, I think the solution to proper rating is to have a rating panel of annually selected 10 people.
That works as well; but my suggestion allows the public to have a say (since that was my original problem
James
Sonork ID: 100.11138 - Hasaki
"Smile your little smile, take some tea with me awhile.
And every day we'll turn another page.
Behind our glass we'll sit and look at our ever-open book,
One brown mouse sitting in a cage."
"One Brown Mouse" from Heavy Horses, Jethro Tull 1978
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Nish [BusterBoy] wrote:
I think the solution to proper rating is to have a rating panel of annually selected 10 people.
I disagree strongly
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Sonork ID: 100.9903 Stormfront
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Nish [BusterBoy] wrote:
I think the solution to proper rating is to have a rating panel of annually selected 10 people.
Having 10 people with the technical knowledge to be able to rate the wide variety of articles posted on CP would be impossible.
It would also create an elite which would be bad news for the website.
Personally, I'd abandon the rating system as it is obviously becoming as abused as the one on MSDN. Even if the ratings were only allowed by registered users, it wouldn't be hard to create fake users.
I say judge an article on the comments posted and on nothing else. If there is a technical flaw with the article people will point it out. If people really appreciate an article they will leave a comment.
Michael
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The rating is being reworked and I'll be using a system that is far, far harder to abuse, and which will be far more benificial to the article authors.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
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Yipppeeeeeeeeee.
Go Chris go....
Nish
My miniputt high is now 29
I do not think I can improve on that
My temperament won't hold
www.busterboy.org
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Nish [BusterBoy] wrote:
Yeah. Mike has written some great articles. In my opinion he is CP's second best author...
<Chris buffs fingernails and looks modest>
... the best being of course Joseph M Newcomer. Nobody nears Joe, nobody.
Nish - you wound me!
cheers,
Chris Maunder
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ROTFLMAO Chris.....
Nish
My miniputt high is now 29
I do not think I can improve on that
My temperament won't hold
www.busterboy.org
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I clicked on "Search Us!" in the partners box and got this:
Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01f4'
Variable is undefined: 'GetCurrentCategory'
/includes/contents_navbar.asp, line 1
--
David Wengier
Sonork ID: 100.14177 - Ch00k
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