Over the course of my career I have, on occasion, had to fall back to trawling various software-related forums for help and advice. Although you occasionally get the odd troll, I have generally found that forums that cover topics such as HTML, PHP, Perl, Java and C# tend to be helpful and friendly. This is in stark contrast to forums that specialize in C++.
Almost without exception, posts by people who are obviously lacking in C++ experience are answered by at least one person who feels it necessary to take them to task, in no uncertain terms, for their lack of knowledge or, something I always find amazing, their coding style. While I recognize that coding style has a big affect in the maintainability of the code, I fail to see why someone who is obviously trying to learn the language should be attacked in quite so vociferous manner.
I can understand constructive criticism, which, when presented in a friendly manner, can be very helpful is shaping people’s coding styles, however I fail to see the benefit of making people feel like idiots just because they haven’t had 20 years experience of hardcore C++ development.
I should point out that is not a gripe from personal experience – I have yet to post a question to a C++ forum exactly because they appear so intimidating – however it always strikes me as odd that the C++ development community seems so unwilling to welcome new blood into their midst.
Why are c++ forums so combative?
Over the course of my career I have, on occasion, had to fall back to trawling various software-related forums for help and advice. Although you occasionally get the odd troll, I have generally found that forums that cover topics such as HTML, PHP, Perl, Java and C# tend to be helpful and friendly. This is in stark contrast to forums that specialize in C++.
Almost without exception, posts by people who are obviously lacking in C++ experience are answered by at least one person who feels it necessary to take them to task, in no uncertain terms, for their lack of knowledge or, something I always find amazing, their coding style. While I recognize that coding style has a big affect in the maintainability of the code, I fail to see why someone who is obviously trying to learn the language should be attacked in quite so vociferous manner.
I can understand constructive criticism, which, when presented in a friendly manner, can be very helpful is shaping people’s coding styles, however I fail to see the benefit of making people feel like idiots just because they haven’t had 20 years experience of hardcore C++ development.
I should point out that is not a gripe from personal experience – I have yet to post a question to a C++ forum exactly because they appear so intimidating – however it always strikes me as odd that the C++ development community seems so unwilling to welcome new blood into their midst.