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Here's some comments
1) The wavy border is very irritating.
2) Why does the site take only half of my screen? Common do we need to suffer for those who still have a 640*480 screen
3) Since you announce that you have been sold to developper.com it seem's that the site is not update as often as before.
i agree about maybe moving the margin over and out of the
way. But the other stuff is going to take time. Codeguru
was a huge site. you just cant move everything over, flip
a switch and expect everything to be perfect. zafir did not
dump off the site and take off to the islands. he is still
here right ? after building up cg all those years do you think
he will leave it in shambles. no.
i dont speak for for zafir, but i respect him enough to at least
give it a chance. After all, does that sound unreasonable?
My concern mainly has to do with the Terms & Conditions - this part seems prohibitive:
All pages within this Internet site ("Site") are the property of EarthWeb Inc. Permission (which may be revoked at any time) is granted to download the material in this Site without alterations and for private and non-commercial use only so long as the following copyright notice is included: Copyright 1996, 1997, 1998 EarthWeb Inc. All Rights Reserved.
That means that they expect anyone who uses any code from this Site to only use it in NON_COMMERCIAL software!! I don't think so! That's just going to keep people from using this board... just to ensure that they don't open themselves up to future litigation - if they happen to write an app which uses code that may appear similar to code that exists on this Site.
Rail
------------
Recording Engineer/Software Developer
Rail Jon Rogut Software
http://home.earthlink.net/~railro/
[email protected]
THIS is the biggest issue (not that dumb wavy waste of space!)
While all contents of the site are (c)EarthWeb, may not be used for commercial purposes, and may be revoked at any time ...
The SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (still) say that the copyright remains with the author of the article, that this website may publish the article (its not even non-exclusive), but the author permits anyone (even commercial users) to use their code.
Clearly, EarthWeb / Developer.Com seems to have "bought" something that they believe now belongs to them, but wasn't actually "owned" by Zafir (or whoever) in the first place.
Also .. if future articles are to be published under the EarthWeb copyright conditions (rather than those explicitly stated in their Author Submission Guidelines) then what does this imply about:
The QUANTITY of new articles ?
The QUALITY of new articles ?
This opinion & these questions are copyright (c) 1999 Steve Kearon
So lets create a new site, "borrow" all codeguru articles and forget this
developer.com thing !
I am sure that you have worked much on the new look but I
really think that the old one was better!
The reasons are the following:
1. the wavy left margin makes me sick after a while, it
is just like taking a ship in a stormy weather. Please
make it strait.
2. the text goes into that wavy thing many times making
a bad look and making it harder to read.
3. the articles are really (not like you say) taking only
the half of my screen, not like before.
But I still think that this site is the best,
because of its contents.
Thank you for all that work!
Zltnsmg
There is certainly some licensing issues which need to be rapidly cleared up.
Apparently now Earthweb owns the copyright to these pages. The code copyright however still remains with the authors as they never transferred their rights to Zafir.
Either Earthweb has to change its copyright policy, or negotiate the transfer of rights from each individual author to Earthweb.
What about existing commercial apps based on Codeguru code?
The usefulness of a code site with code that developers cannot use in commercial apps is far more limited.
The road forward as I see it is for someone to set up a new site for all the authors to resubmit their code to, with a useful licensing arrangement (i.e. the old one). I have a few articles in progress that I know will never be submitted here that I will be willing to finish off for a new site.
Its a great shame to lose such a useful resource... perhaps a poll should have been done (Should we sell out to Earthweb?) before the move.
I have sent in a comment about this before. My self and my colleagues preferred the table on the main page.
The layout looks messy without it. Can we have it back please.
Hello,
the site is slow, ok, reading is not easy with the left marge, but ok, it could be a style... (The idea which consists that developer.com try to copy the original codeguru style is a good idea).
My pb (am I the only one?) is that printing is disabled or don't work with netscape 4.6. Very annoying !!
Regards,
Thierry
I guess as far as I can see the wave should be removed and the performance of the site should be improved. Actually, I believe that the access speed of the site was reduced after this change. As for the wave it reduces speed even more + reduces readability.
In addition, the thing that I thought should be changed but remained as is the home page of the CodeGuru. The contents are the same for very long times. The topics the voting topic, ...etc.
Thanks,
Victor.
Lets start a site at MSN and get them to take off the banners or whatever they have.. I'm sure they will do it if we ask !!!! Servers are fast too !!!!
Someone start up a central place and lets REBUILD !!!!
jon
I notice that "All pages within this Internet site ("Site") are the property of EarthWeb Inc.". BULL The all of the articles that I contributed belong to ME. I was happy to share them with the user community but I'll be damned if I will have them stolen and have someone else control them.
All of my code and articles on this sites are totally in the public domain and may be used for any purpose, commercial or non-comercial. If EarthWeb has a problem with that then I demand that they remove all of my articles immediately and I will find a proper place to post them.
Randy More
Ditto.
This is *so* sad.
I tried to add a comment in the database section to the article "RFX_Date using COleDateTime" and got the error file not found
Please could you add the comment:
VC6 now includes an undocumented overloaded RFX_Date which takes a COleDateTime
Liked it the old way a whole lot better.
This is the single most important issue. It deserves a quick response from the new owners of CodeGuru. If EarthWeb expects to own the contributions to this site and the contributions to this site cannot be used commercially, this site will cease and a new one WILL replace it. Can we hear from EarthWeb please....before your customer base leaves.
Please, please, please lose the wave on the side. It's really annoying.
It's a real pain. When I tried to print a page (.../mfc_database/Ado_Aok.shtml) my netscape 4.5 browser starts to spool printing but never completes. IE is slightly better in that it prints but, because of the fixed pages, all the lines are truncated.
--Jim
I hope Zafir got paid big bucks to $#@$%@#$%#$ what used to be a great site.
I must agree with what others have said. The wavy green graphic sucks ***. I have seen this on all of Developer.coms slow, incredibly hard to read, pages. I would rather have the page layout as before or atleast not all scrunched up like it is. (As viewed on a 1024x768 monitor) I am very dissapointed with the direction this site has now taken. I really used to conider it a good source for information, now like all of developer.com's sites it is a good source of frustration and useless advertisements.
I have to agree completely. Does anyone know the actual legality of this - i.e. claiming something that is free to be your own "property"?
I wish I had made a full archive of the site just before it moved, but I will definitely make one now. I won't pay EarthWeb for code the author wants to be free.
This has the potential to be a major blow to my development as a programmer. I have visited Codeguru.com on a daily basis for over a year. It has been the best C++ development site on the web for a long time.
Birch Champeon
The fixed width makes it more difficult to read than before.
The wavy line also makes reading somewhat unpleasant on any but the home page.
The wavy left margin causes problems, look at that page
http://www.codeguru.com/controls/gridctrl.shtml
Also on a 1024x768 screen this page does not expand correctly to fill the screen. At least not on mine. Shame on you zafir you have allowed a useful site to be destroyed.
it is true
a) the wavy left margin sucks
b) the search engine doesn't work
I have to admit, this was my favorite site because it offered straight forward no nonsence information. Now I have to deal with some art guy telling me I need to look at a pleasant green wave that gets in the way of what I want. Also, I can't seem to get the search to work when it does I have to stop loading the banners because it takes me to a failed page. I must agree this was an exceptional page expecially for getting fast answers now it falls into the same slow developer.com pages.
It was nice, while it lasted...
Sorry EarthWeb, but you have to learn the hard way...
Now that you've gone and changed the site, all my bookmarks to the various
newsgroups are broken. Not only did I have bookmarks to 5 or 6 of my favorite
groups, I had bookmarks to the individual topic threads as well. They saved me
a lot of time sifting through all the messages just to find what I was looking
for. All of these bookmarks no longer work. Thanks a lot. - Jim
I don't like the fact that codeguru has been swallowed up,but I guess you have to make a buck too.. There was nothing wrong with it before. Growing up from a nice grassroots beginnings it had appeal to the independent "basement" programmer. Now that it is perceived to be semi-commercialized then I see some of those fickle programmers finding another home for their code and their thoughts.
On previously hit link, your grayed out text is too hard to read and sometimes I wish to return to a previously hit link. Hard to find in the list.
Hope you made a ton of money in selling this to Earth Web. Still the best C++ site available.
This once magnificent site has been completely destroyed. It looks terrible, none of the contributors have any rights to their articles any more, it doesn't work, and in general went from a grade A site to a grade Z site in less than 24 hours. Congratulations on making the biggest mistake in the shortest time ever! This is a real disappointment.
It's great to see one of us make it big time. How much did you sell it for ? I'll still use it as one of my code sites, I'm not going to join the "your a sell out" bandwagon that so many seem to be doing just to go along with the rest of the sheep. "BAAAA BAAA your a sellllll out I'll never use this site again" said the sheep before slaughter.
All you stupid fools every one of you would of done the same thing as Zafir. You should be happy that one of us made it and doesnt have to code like a monkey just to make a decent living. You all sound like sheep with all the "sell out", "I'll never use this site again" bullshit crap. You sound like little teenagers who get pissed when their favorite band gets signed to a major label.
And whats this crap about authors not having rights to their articles. booo hooo waaaa waaaa . What rights did they have in the first place Zafir always had discrimination over all the articles and could exercise it at any time. And do you think that earthweb would really do that, yeah you stupid idiot earthweb is going to totally lock up codeguru so that nobody can right articles or anything yeah that makes sense!!! Go back to your job with your name on your shirt you don't deserve to be one of the elite known as programmers. For the rest of you be happy for the man he worked hard and deserves every $$$.
I whole-heartedly agree with this sentiment. Codeguru became popular because of the grassroots efforts. Quality people wrote quality articles. Now, with the amount of commercialization, it's bound to turn-off future contributors and original fans. I don't expect anything worth reading in the future. Time to look elsewhere.
Earthweb pages are hideous to look at. It used to be that you could print out the content and have a nice readble article. Or you could save it as html (with images) and with a few strokes, have a clean print out. Now, it's unbearable to read on print.
These net 'content' providers don't get it-- ads are effective only if there are few (max of 2 per page). The moment you flood people with filthe, people become quick with their reflexes and mentally sort out ad and content spaces on a web page in a matter of split seconds. In those cases, the ads are almost always ignored. That seems like common sense-- why don't people follow the fewer-ads-higher-charges idea. I don't know who is more lacking in intelligence: the content providers who flood with ads or the people who advertise in those spaces.
Earthweb style is almost as bad as Cnet. I'd give Earthweb just a few months before they start splitting nice articles into a few paragraphs per page and making you go to the next page -- etc. But it doesn't matter anymore... just like how I stopped visiting Cnet, I'll stop visiting Codeguru. I'll check a few times to see if they clean up the new act.
To the Codeguru staff: sell-out, make your money... that's okay. Don't loose the style and elegance that brought the people in.
Let's see, take a perfectly functional, properly laid out website which has taken a very long time to build up a loyal following and completely
destroy it. Smart, not very.
I thought CGuru was supposed to be an innovative technology site. Maybe the content is still good, when you can find it. But wavy lines
down the side apart, it makes your eyes bleed to look at it.
Want to improve the site, put it back the way it bloody was. In fact don't bother, there are other sites out there which suddenly look much
more interesting.
Can you believe it?
Good to see all your hard work payed off. I use your site all the time and will continue to do so.
Oh dear, here are a few keywords to illustrate that you don't know diddly.
Apache
PERL
Samba
GNU
I and some others directly involved with some of these don't actually ever financially need to turn up for work ever again, maybe we do it
because we enjoy it?
So your saying that Zafir should of not sold and ASSERT(continued to work a million hours and worry about everything) just to do it because he enjoyed it and not take any money ? Oh and your such a guru that you don't need to turn up for work again, I'm sure with your elitist self centered look down on everyone who doesnt live up to your standards attitude that your real popular at the office. I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant
!
My major complaint is the speed of the site. As it stands currently, it is unusable. I will check back occasionally, but until this issue is resolved I will not be making use of CodeGuru. What a Shame. This site was a very useful resource.
-Brad
What a boondoggle! If Zafir would have sent out a message like, "Hey, we need some cash here to help pay the bills or I'm gonna have to sell off codeguru", I would have opened up my wallet and chipped in. It was that valuable to me. I learned more here than all of the other sites combined. I aspired to become good enough to someday post something(!) and "repay" what I've gleaned from the site over time. No more. This change is absolutely in the wrong direction.
Zafir-- you've been bamboozled, hornswaggled--well, downright snookered. The new owners know absolutely *****************NOTHING****************** about the way developers think!!!! And furthermore, their silence after this outright rebellion shows they don't give &*()&*) either!! Combine that with the obvious legal problems with their copyright/use statement, and you can see that not just the old, loyal crowd is going to leave, but new developers will largely pass it by the first time they hit the site, thinking "yeah, another one of those... better keep looking." They'll eventually hit the new codeguru replacement that WILL come into existence (pretty soon I think). The magic in the old codeguru, and the ONLY way a site such as this can work, is to have substance over pizzaz and freedom from claimed ownership of anything posted or downloaded. Period. There is no other formula.
Zafir, you guys are the winners in all this. You've escaped the burden of the mundane earn-a-buck life. We'll setup a new site somewhere else and continue to get what we got on the old codeguru. But a year from now developer.com is going to wonder about how much they paid for what they got! You guys got the cash while there was something to sell.
it's a lot more confusing, than before, I don't like it, I just hope that the content quality doesn't drop as well....
In general, the wavy left border image is distracting.
It is especially distracting on pages like:
http://www.codeguru.com/toolbar/demo_toolbar_c.shtml
(article: "Adding a drop arrow to a toolbar") On this
page, you can see the "waves" touching the sample
dialog image and bits of code, making the article
itself more difficult to read. A simple aqua rectangle,
with a decent margin between the aqua rectangle and
the article proper, would be a great deal easier to read.
Alternatively: at least increase/introduce a margin between
the blue waves and the text and images of the article itself.
Legalese is confusing and this is one such case. If you go down further you'll see the following
PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU RETAIN OWNERSHIP OF ANY COPYRIGHTS OF ANY CONTENT YOU SUBMIT
Legalese is confusing and this is one such case. If you go down further you'll see the following
PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU RETAIN OWNERSHIP OF ANY COPYRIGHTS OF ANY CONTENT YOU SUBMIT
This is what it says further down
PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU RETAIN OWNERSHIP OF ANY COPYRIGHTS OF ANY CONTENT YOU SUBMIT
This is what it says further down
PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU RETAIN OWNERSHIP OF ANY COPYRIGHTS OF ANY CONTENT YOU SUBMIT
Thank you for calrifying. I must admit that I did not understand that. The statement does seem a little contradictory, but I feel a little better.
Zafir's top level post includes this comment regarding the tiny fixed width of some pages.
We're not trading beanie babies out here. Who are the 'non techies' we're suddenly concerned with?? Take a look at the old polls - about 65% responding have 2 or more computers -at home-. 68% own more than 10 programming books, and 17% of those own more than FIFTY. 65% think a development machine should have 128 MB or more RAM. Over 60% run NT 4 on their development machine.
If you're trying to broaden your audience, fine. But I think you are making a big mistake if you don't see how it will alienate the existing audience.