Language tags attached to beginning of the threads in the Programming section

It is becoming difficult day by day to look for C/C++ threads.

I need to read every title in the programming section only to figure out, no.. it is not related to C/C++.. and then when the language is not mentioned in the title (which happens often) I have to click the thread and wait for the page to load only to find out that the OP is doing it in bash/sed/awk.. and then click on the next page and read ALL the thread titles...and the loop goes on!

and user defined tags can't be relied upon since most newbies don't tag threads..

It has been discussed before that the languages are NOT going to have special sections, so if we have tags like these:

[C/C++]        How to store text in separate lines in a list format?
[AWK/SED/GAWK]How to count the lines in a file?
[PYTHON]       NameError: name 'sakdh' is not defined.
[Other]        Is recv() a blocking function?

• and the facility of sorting threads by the language would be a great help here.
• and a when we create a thread in the programming section, we could be given a drop down menu to select our language tag from.
• and it could/should be made compulsory to select that tag for the thread in the programming section...

Good idea -- +6.

Worse, LQ Search considers 'C' & 'C++' no good: "The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search: C, C"

Let me play devil's advocate -- even if it's technically possible to make the language tagging mandatory, how can we justify it w/in the LQ philosophy?

Would it make sense for you & like minded fellow LQ members to make a project of using the existing tagging system to accomplish your goal?

Originally Posted by archtoad6 Would it make sense for you & like minded fellow LQ members to make a project of using the existing tagging system to accomplish your goal?

Thanks for commenting but I really couldn't understand the
above quote of yours, see if you can explain it in simple words.

Rather than ask for a change that you probably won't get, & that won't work the way you want, I am suggesting a way that you can fix the problem yourself:

• Go through the Programming forum & tag the posts w/ an appropriate language tag.
• To lighten the work load, recruit like minded LQ members to help. (I would help some, although my main programming interest these days is bash scripting.)

I have added 4 test tags to this thread to demonstrate the current tagging system -- "c/cpp, ccpp, [c/c++], [c/cpp]". Only "[c/c++]" cannot be found in a tag search, the plus signs get ignored.

Advantages

• AFAIK, w/in the LQ Rules.
• No changes to LQ necessary.
• You can do it the way you like it.
• You only have to tag each thread once.
• Totally in the F/OSS spirit -- scratch your own itch.

Difficulties

• Too much work for one person: there are approx. 48 pages at 50 threads/page = 4,800 threads in Programming in the last 12 months.
• Agreeing on, & sticking to, a uniform set of tags.
• Designing a unique tag format that is not likely to be misapplied by non-project members. E.g.: "ccpp" is more likely to be innocently added to a thread by someone not part of this "project" than "[ccpp]" or "@ccpp".

post4250

Originally Posted by archtoad6 Rather than ask for a change that you probably won't get

That depends on how many people feel that this change makes sense and post in this thread, the unfortunate part is that the major non bash programmers active here, e.g. Sergie, johnsfine, dWhitney67, paulsm4, ta0kira do NOT visit LQS&F, so this thread won't have any supporters!

Originally Posted by archtoad6 & that won't work the way you want

It will work the way I want because the pre-generated [C++], [C], [SED] etc. labels would be already available in a drop down list while creating the thread, and could safely be made compulsory coz. the OP would obviously know in which language he is writing the program and if it is a general logic question, it could always land up in label [other].

e.g. if some Qt threads are lying around scattered, and some Qt expert visits LQ, he could easily sort the threads in programming section by the label [Qt] and thus post or learn from them!

No offense intended, but the current programming section is a mess.

Originally Posted by archtoad6 Go through the Programming forum & tag the posts w/ an appropriate language tag.

That is really not feasible, firstly I have already volunteered the reporting of technical threads in the Introduction forum. I can't take up further responsibilities as it costs me time and effort (I am in a job). Secondly, if I have to go through ALL the threads to find out which ones are C/C++, for tagging them, then the problem stated in the OP still persists!

Thanks for the feedback. I think at this time tagging is actually the best way to handle this for a couple reasons. First, we would not want to make a prefix mandatory as members being able to get help as easily as possible is one of our main goals. You'd be surprised how quickly some new members abandon posting because of a single required dropdown that they don't understand. Using prefix's would also mean that we would need to maintain a full list of programming languages and that each member would have to correctly choose a prefix, while all old threads would be without them. By using tags any LQ members who are interested can go back and properly tag all old threads at a manageable pace (and the handle new threads as they come in) and create tags for new languages. This seems like a much more sustainable and accurate system to me. I'm not 100% ruling out the suggestion, but there would need to be a pretty compelling argument for it.

--jeremy

I guess: you can use [language] at the start of your questions - or even just make sure you put java: or python: etc at the beginning of all your programming questions and encourage everyone in programming to do so. Eventually there may be a culture of putting in the language in the title (as is good practice anyway) for all programming questions.

TG

So, here are some NON compelling arguments for the issue in question.

You'd be surprised how quickly some new members abandon posting because of a single required dropdown that they don't understand

Yes, now I have realized that a novice Windows based C programmer might just get scared on seeing the weird names like awk and sed and run for his life!

Using prefix's would also mean that we would need to maintain a full list of programming languages

Maintaining a full list of programming languages is NOT a major issue, but the problem is that the programming section of LQ does not attract the questions pertaining to thousands of weird languages currently, so keeping all those languages in the drop down list would not only prove to be a clutter but also would confuse the newbie.

So, in order to diminish the above stated problems, we could identify the MAJOR languages which fill up the LQ's programming section.
Then if we keep only the MAJOR languages in the drop down list and group up the scripting languages as shown below, that would perhaps prove to be less scary and less cluttering:

1. C/C++
2. Python
3. Scripts e.g. BASH, SED, AWK, Perl, etc.
4. Other   (Select 'Other' if your programming language is not listed above 
            or the question is not specific to any programming language in 
            particular)

and then at some later stage if we realize that 4 threads of Qt land up in programming section per day, then perhaps we can safely add Qt too in the drop down list.

while all old threads would be without them.

That has to happen one day, if not now then perhaps after 10 years, when around 40% of the questions would be related to [Example] C/C++ in the prog. section. Then when people would start asking for a new section for the [Example] language, would you be moving all the 5000 threads to some new section or let them be wherever they are?

By using tags any LQ members who are interested can go back and properly tag all old threads at a manageable pace (and the handle new threads as they come in) and create tags for new languages. This seems like a much more sustainable and accurate system to me..

Of course that is a more sustainable system and I would be following it once I get retired because then I won't have to catch up the deadlines of the office work nor I would be preparing for any interviews and also I would have many servants to take care of my daily chores. Then I would relax on my couch and start tagging ALL the threads.

I remember that previously you had developed a feature which generated automatic tags, the feature wasn't
successful because it grabbed nearly all the words from the title to create the tags.

Now would it make sense if you parse the TITLE of the thread as well as the FIRST POST, only
for the terms like "C", "C++", "awk", "python", "sed" etc, and let these terms serve as the automatic
generated tags?

Searching the FIRST POST would be necessary in this case, since most of the thread
titles do NOT contain the language name.