Request for new forum

Hi all(esp Brad!),
Once somewhere in this forum I mentioned that there is a flood in the Visual C++ forum. Posts from a single day may cover anywhere from 3-8 pages. So the problem is that posters often has to refresh or bump their posts often to stay afloat. The only solution I can see is to create more specific forums. The recent such addition was the forum for graphics programming which was nice.

I request another forum that discuss topics such as winsock, protocols (tcp, udp...) and related. The topic (socket) is very vast and that itself deserves a seperate forum. I often find winsock topics answered by few regular members. If such a forum is created it can benifit the posters as well as the members who regularly answer the questions. There is always a good chance for those who know the answer to miss the questions because of the flood. Hope my request will be considered in the interest of the betterment of CG.

Thanks.

Anyone else interested in this forum? If so, chime in on this thread.

Thanks,

Brad!

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Originally posted by Brad Jones
Anyone else interested in this forum? If so, chime in on this thread.

Thanks,

Brad!

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I just wanted to say that I dont chime in

Because first, this idea is absolutely based on so much "self"ness,
Second,

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the problem is that posters often has to refresh or bump their posts often to stay afloat.

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Members can search for their own names...

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I request another forum that discuss topics such as winsock, protocols (tcp, udp...) and related. The topic (socket) is very vast and that itself deserves a seperate forum. I often find winsock topics answered by few regular members.

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Refer to my first reason, and the fact is that Mr Joy only posts one or twice a day, especially his question, about what he is sugesting here.

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There is always a good chance for those who know the answer to miss the questions because of the flood. Hope my request will be considered in the interest of the betterment of CG.

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Sure ! I mean when requesting something, people usually do that and that is known for sure...
There is actually no "flood" here, a lot of different questions have been made on that VC++ forums and most of them are VC++ related posts.
Now internet programming is mostly related to C++/VC++, so i think it is enough. Do not make so many forums that make each of them become dull like some of other places where I have been...

Anyway, I think it is up to Brad!, so I think what I said might be useless, Is that correct, Mr Jones ? :)

Me!

there is a certain amount of sockets questions asked...but it's no more than if we said, lets have a debugging forum. I kinda agree..sorta...I guess the real litmus is to create a forum and see how it rides....

/Hometown your hatred for Mathew is evident, because he, much like I, would say to you grow up...simpleton.

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Originally posted by Brad Jones
Anyone else interested in this forum? If so, chime in on this thread.

Thanks,

Brad!

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One of the problem might be those who regularly answer might not see this thread. Seems like I have a solution.

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Originally posted by Charleston

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What is being alleged by you is absolutely baseless and as usual senseless. I challenge you to show me a question that I asked about winsock. Maybe about a couple that I asked at the time I joined this fourm. But I don't remember.

To Brad
One of the reasons (apart from the already mentioned) that I asked you to create is that, recently I see less quality and sometimes wrong answers posted. And I find those after browsing 3-4 pages. As I told, those who are expertised it might not have a chance to view. (BTW I consider myself expert esp in certain areas of winsock, though I am still learning). If we have a separate forum, it will attract more people (from outside) to post here (along with the help of mods by moving threads). As usual the final decision goes to you.

<EDIT: Ooops...Again baned. Would have kept my noise a bit low if I knew it before I posted. Makes me feel I'm talking to a dead person :D>

See...think from the posters point of view. He wants to get his qn answered. In other words, he wants max views for his qn esp if it is specific to an area. So he flags this thread as URGENT or maybe subjects like help, hi etc... so that someone viewing it might have a clue to the problem, before it exits the first page. Some newbies do not know the trick of bumping to make the post afloat, thereby leaving CG and posting else where. I've got a few PM asking for help, though it was posted on the VC programming forum, and eventually I was able to help them (esp the ones that deals with LSP). If there was specific forums, the question would have answered and it would've helped not only the poster but also those who view them latter. The poster would have come for more (not to mention the by-mouth-publicity that CG gets) in such specific forums. I bet this is not only the discussion forum the Brad has seen;).

Just strengthening my argument for more specific forums. I suggest one for winsock and co. cause I know that I can help.

Waiting for more chimes :D

[edited thread]

I think a socket forum is a good idea. the subject is broad enough
to support a forum and recognizable enough that people would know
that is what there problem is. I also like the debugger forum.
I think it would prove very useful. The problem is that people
would not know that is where they need to post, or would post
there incorrectly.

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Originally posted by souldog
The problem is that people would not know that is where they need to post, or would post there incorrectly.

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That can be solved if the mods can move the threads from the general to the specific or to appropriate forums.

Just to be clear, I was talking about the debugger forum when
I mentioned this. I don't think it would be a problem with sockets.

I think three possible forums which would be very useful are

sockets
debugger
os internals

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Originally posted by souldog
Just to be clear, I was talking about the debugger forum when
I mentioned this. I don't think it would be a problem with sockets.

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Hmmm...Had the same doubt that it would create confusion, if I left like that. It occured me, when I re-read my post(should have quoted couple more of your lines). Yea...so in my prev post I was supporting the idea of having more specific forums.

well, i think, it should also encircle the Topics related with network programming, not only Sockets.

Maybe, but it will loose its focus if material of too high a level is included. Focus should be on the API stuff and maybe even
restricted to C++/C.

Maybe there should be a sticky at the very top telling people
not to use CSocket/CAsyncSocket as well.. Just to get that
over with :)

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Originally posted by Andy Tacker
well, i think, it should also encircle the Topics related with network programming, not only Sockets.

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I think it is OK. But my view is the forum name should have 'winsock' (or something simillar) in it, so it is easier to recognize. As Soul said the topic is broad enough to support a forum. I know there are lots of socket related questions floating around the net. If we have a reconizable forum we can funnel some of the traffic into our forum. Well, it also depends on how popular the forum becomes and the first step is to have a name that shows winsock discussion is also taking place.

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Originally posted by souldog
Maybe, but it will loose its focus if material of too high a level is included. Focus should be on the API stuff and maybe even
restricted to C++/C.

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If we restrict like that there won't be enough posts in the forum and the forum will become unpopular. CG gets more MFC related socket questions. Let others answer. We can tell them to use APIs instead.:D

To Brad!
How come I didn't get notifications for Souls 2 posts? I was viewing Andys post as soon as I got the notification. Then the page was like that. (I didn't refresh)

I also agree, that a forum specialization might be indeed helpful. However, as being mentioned earlier I would rather like to see a common Network forum (just like the common Graphics forum) instead of limiting it to windows sockets.

The following statement is going to sound goofy:

The broader you can make your forum on a specific topic, the greater the probability the forum will succeed.

This is what a couple of people have been saying - pick an area that is broad enough to interest people, yet specific enough that people will know what it is - versus other forums.

C++ Network programming
This forum is for covering network programming, socket, blah, blah, and related networking topics.

Debugging and Optimization
This forum is for covering debugging issues, optimization, and related topics.

These topics are broader than "Sockets" and "Debuggers"; however, they encompus those topics. Additionally, while they are broader, they provide an area where the focus of the questions will be similar. Finally, while specific, these two are broad enough that they may draw several people into posting.

We've not added a lot of forums for a while, so I am willing to add a couple of new forums to break out the VC++/C++ topics. The two above seem like good choices (although better descriptions than mine would need to be added). Are they, however, the best choices for new forums? Additionally, if I add them, then I'd like to have a volunteer to agree to moderate them. This person would probably want to also spend time in the main forum to redirect some of the posts there into the new forum(s).

If the forums don't get used for a while, then we will roll them back into the main forums.

Thoughts?

Brad!

Yes, I thought of these two forums you have described while writing my previous response as well. A third forum I would like to suggest is

Multithreading
This forum is for covering multithreading issues and related topics.

As you already might have guessed, I can moderate these three forums if you want.

Hi,


I think a network forum might be helpful and maybe it could include all types of communications protocols like USB, firewire and even RS-232 and parallel port as well (just a thought).

I think that the multithreading forum is a great idea.

There also seems to be may questions relating to file I/O as well.

TDM

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Originally posted by TDM
I think a network forum might be helpful and maybe it could include all types of communications protocols like USB, firewire and even RS-232 and parallel port as well (just a thought).

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Well...I would think that integrating USB, firewire and RS-232 would be misleading in regard to a network forum, simply because they are serial communications which are not done through network hardware. Same applies to parallel communications. This is of course my opinion.

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Originally posted by TDM
There also seems to be may questions relating to file I/O as well.

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I agree that this would be a possible forum as well, however I am not sure at the moment whether the number of questions in regard to this justify a dedicated forum yet...

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Originally posted by Brad Jones
The following statement is going to sound goofy:

The broader you can make your forum on a specific topic, the greater the probability the forum will succeed.

This is what a couple of people have been saying - pick an area that is broad enough to interest people, yet specific enough that people will know what it is - versus other forums.

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I don't know if it sounds goofy, but I know what I am talking about.

The topic winsock itself is very broad. You have BSD(unix), winsocket and in winsocket you have MFC, API, then you have raw. In APIs you have different IO models (blocking, non-blocking, select, asyncselect, eventselect, overlapped io, iocp) and there are others like Service Providers (LSP comes here). See...these topics can be made to different forums provided it is popular enough (outside CG). My view was rather than making a forum for one (or more) such sub categories include all these into one forum.

Well, if the options are reduced to what Brad! suggested I would suggest to take the word c++ away and have the name Network programming. I don't know if there is any c++ specific Network programming.

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Originally posted by Mathew Joy
Well, if the options are reduced to what Brad! suggested I would suggest to take the word c++ away and have the name Network programming. I don't know if there is any c++ specific Network programming.

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Well...I think it was meant to indicate that the new forum will be 'outsorced' from the C++ forums and not the others (e.g. Visual Basic)... :cool:

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Originally posted by Andreas Masur
Well...I think it was meant to indicate that the new forum will be 'outsorced' from the C++ forums and not the others (e.g. Visual Basic)... :cool:

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Is it necessary, since it comes under the Visual C++ and C++ programming category?

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Originally posted by Mathew Joy
Is it necessary, since it comes under the Visual C++ and C++ programming category?

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Well...I would say no....but you know... :cool:

Nevertheless, I do not think that this would be a big deal whether it will be named simply 'Network programming'... ;)

I agree that multithreading and networking/sockets are two very common question areas, and hence both might benefit from their own forums.

It would be great if Andreas would moderate these forums.

Brad, I wouldn't call the second "C++ Networking", however, since it might imply (especially to newbies) that if the program is MFC-based then the question doesn't belong there but rather should be posted in the MFC forum. Just call it "Networking" and of course explain that it covers all aspects including raw sockets, Winsock API, BSD sockets, MFC-based CSocket and CAsyncSocket etc. I don't think USB, RS-232 and others belong there.

-Mike

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Originally posted by Brad Jones

Debugging
This forum is for covering debugging issues
Brad!

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all your crash are belong to us. Now that is a broad subject, because as you know, all your crash are typically because they are not using the api's correctly or whatever have you.

I'd have to say there is more my code crash posts than any other. My code don't work right posts, my code blah blah. I think that's too broad.

you could probably replace the visual c++ bugs and fixes forum with this, when is the last time someone posted in there, and most of the posts are people saying I found a bug in MFC or this api...yep you sure found a bug in your own code.

I created two of the forums yesterday. Let's see how they go. If you guys want the debugging type forum or a "Fix My Code" type forum, let me know (yes, these are two totally different types of forums). We will then need to determine the best name and description.

Brad!

I would suggest a change to the description of the Networking forum so that it doesn't say "blah blah". Maybe something like

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This forum covers all aspects of network programming, including raw sockets, Winsock API, BSD sockets, MFC-based CSocket and CAsyncSocket etc., and other network-realted topics

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"Blah blah" might give an unprofessional veneer to the forum.

-Mike

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Originally posted by MikeAThon
I would suggest a change to the description of the Networking forum so that it doesn't say "blah blah". Maybe something like

"Blah blah" might give an unprofessional veneer to the forum.

-Mike

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That is what I get for creating new forums at near midnight on a long day...... Doh! :D

I'll go fix that now......


Brad~