

 Why didn’t codeproject.com develop into what stackoverflow is today - cl8ton
http://www.codeproject.com

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hardwaresofton
I'm just a passerby, but it seems like codeproject is mostly windows-focused?
Just looking at the front page, I see a lot of .NET, ASP, C#, Java (not
windows, of course), but a lot of enterprise-y stuff.

I think part of the success of stack overflow is the wide representation of so
many languages, areas of expertise,etc that are there.

ex. I just went to the stackoverflow main page, and the first question listed
was objective c, two steps down was a question about neo4j.

Also -- search results probably had something to do with it

~~~
cl8ton
Yes CP is primarily geared towards Win, that’s mostly because they pre-date
current day languages and frameworks.

But if they could fix comments and apply the same excellent moderation towards
todays language, SO would have a definite competitor.

~~~
hardwaresofton
I think they already have a competitor -- just on different grounds. For
example, I think most windows devs know much more about CP than SO, but you're
not going to find them here, as they're not well represented.

And I think that issue is more generally applied to the communities that hang
around most of the startup world/young internet... Most people are more
interested in getting started on rails than learning ASP.NET/VB -- and of
course, many of the exciting new technologies are not tied into the windows
ecosystem, so there isn't much need to get yourself into the windows
ecosystem...

I would venture to say that CP needs to do something drastic, rebrand itself
(possibly offer a less-cluttered site), and start trying to reach other
programming languages/areas more heavily? Not quite sure how you'd do the
latter, though

Also, with the stats they have at the top, seems like they certainly have the
userbase...

Maybe they could even open up an R&D department, do some advertising to get
new hires in it, and start to try and do more experiments? Like for example,
if someone were to post on HN tomorrow that CP had a beta site, trying a super
interesting new fluid search box, clean redesign, and possibly some drastic
interface change, even if it was just a beta, I'd be really interested, and it
would definitely get people to view and remember the site...

Again, the R&D team would serve well to get people excited about this. One
thing stack overflow doesn't have currently (that I know of) is a code
execution testbed. If you gave people a chance to throw some code in fiddles
right there on the page, that would be an interesting new feature (and at
least a step in the right direction of helping people fix code problems, which
is what people go to these sites for), and that would excite people, maybe
even spawning a SO copycat feature

~~~
cl8ton
Excellent points especially about the fiddles. One thing CP is really heavy
into is the C/C++ realm, which can arguably apply to many platforms. I hope
Chris Maunder reads HN and can chime in or start a new post on the future
direction of CP.

It just seems CP reached a pinnacle years ago and then just let it ride (so to
speak)

------
cl8ton
I have been using codeproject.com for many years because of its high quality
posts and still use it today. SO has better advice in the comments.

When searching I’m always pleasantly surprised to see CP come up in the SERP
because I know I will find great examples when going there.

~~~
danieltillett
I agree. If i am looking for quick advice on something SO is great, while if I
am looking for something in depth then CP is often better.

One area I wish CP would improve is its comments. It much harder than it
should be to find the great comments.

