I want to be clear that I have the greatest respect for Stack Overflow. I think there has been nothing ever that has increased programmer productivity more than Stack Overflow. (quoting wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet) Fred Brooks said that "there is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order of magnitude [tenfold] improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity." But Stack Overflow hadn't been born at that time. No language, operating system or compiler could ever have more impact on developer productivity than an effective global Q&A site for programmers - that's what Stack Overflow is and it is damn fine.
It's just that Stack Overflow would be diluted and weakened by allowing open ended discussion on software technology and development. People go to SO with questions for which they want a specific answer.
Not Constructive is intended to facilitate the valuable discussions about software that don't fit into that strict Q&A format. Not Constructive is for broader questions, and welcomes subjective opinion. It's not in conflict with SO, it's a complement to SO.
I'm glad to see there are people making an effort to have a place for water-cooler chat and extended discussion. I hope this works out, just as I hope Slant.co ( http://slant.co ) works out. Thanks for taking the time to launch something like this, and good luck in your endeavors.
It seems it's directly related to Stack Overflow but I wonder how both will be "connected"? Are you going to go to closed questions on SO and post a link to your website? Directly contacting authors of closed questions might also prove difficult since many users don't display their email address. Overall, I don't quite understand how it's going to work out. If there's no connection to SO (beside the questions being imported from there) then it's like any other forum.
There will be no direct connection with SO. Not Constructive is just a place to come to ask open ended questions about software development, where opinions and subjective answers are considered relevant and valid.
Programmers.SE originally took "not constructive" questions, but that turned out to be a mess, so they had to refine their scope multiple times until a viable model appeared. Now their scope is more or less "whiteboard" questions, which can be partially opinion based (just like almost every question on SO), but that is not the focus. The FAQ says:
> Specific issues with software development, for instance:
- algorithm and data structure concepts
- testing and quality assurance
- development methodologies
> freelancing and business concerns
> software architecture, engineering, or licensing
Can I ask how the site will work? I guess from other comments you've made here and the fact you haven't just grabbed an open source package and launched already that you have some specific plan on how this community will be structured?
I want to be clear that I have the greatest respect for Stack Overflow. I think there has been nothing ever that has increased programmer productivity more than Stack Overflow. (quoting wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet) Fred Brooks said that "there is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order of magnitude [tenfold] improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity." But Stack Overflow hadn't been born at that time. No language, operating system or compiler could ever have more impact on developer productivity than an effective global Q&A site for programmers - that's what Stack Overflow is and it is damn fine.
It's just that Stack Overflow would be diluted and weakened by allowing open ended discussion on software technology and development. People go to SO with questions for which they want a specific answer.
Not Constructive is intended to facilitate the valuable discussions about software that don't fit into that strict Q&A format. Not Constructive is for broader questions, and welcomes subjective opinion. It's not in conflict with SO, it's a complement to SO.
Please do sign up at http://signup.notconstructive.com if you're interested in hearing when we launch.