What does CPians expect from an article on CP
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Hi Everybody, I looked at my article's rating and it is just around 2. I thought about it and had a question. What do CPians expect from an article ? Whether it should be completly technical always ? Whether it should cover the topic in great details ? Should there always be a project (ZIP) with the article ? I am sure that the answers will be person dependant, but that will help the new writers or rather users wanting to express themselves, learn the art of writing. And also, please dont misunderstand me for my question. I just want to know how to present your bit of knowledge in a more acceptable format ? I request you all to put in your comments / expectation about article writing so that every one here will benefit / correct there errors. Thanks !
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." -- Doug Linder
coolestCoder
When writing an article ask yourself "Does this have Zing?" Zing is the hook that draws you in. It's the feeling that the article is giving you what you want. It's sex appeal. A good article leaves you feeling a little bit dirty. Ahem. Perhaps I need to get out more.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
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Hi Everybody, I looked at my article's rating and it is just around 2. I thought about it and had a question. What do CPians expect from an article ? Whether it should be completly technical always ? Whether it should cover the topic in great details ? Should there always be a project (ZIP) with the article ? I am sure that the answers will be person dependant, but that will help the new writers or rather users wanting to express themselves, learn the art of writing. And also, please dont misunderstand me for my question. I just want to know how to present your bit of knowledge in a more acceptable format ? I request you all to put in your comments / expectation about article writing so that every one here will benefit / correct there errors. Thanks !
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." -- Doug Linder
coolestCoder
I would say also that there is not anything of much in there that you cannot get from the MSDN documentation - having some examples of working unit tests would be much more useful.
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When writing an article ask yourself "Does this have Zing?" Zing is the hook that draws you in. It's the feeling that the article is giving you what you want. It's sex appeal. A good article leaves you feeling a little bit dirty. Ahem. Perhaps I need to get out more.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
When writing an article ask yourself "Does this have Zing?" Zing is the hook that draws you in. It's the feeling that the article is giving you what you want. It's sex appeal. A good article leaves you feeling a little bit dirty.
If my wife were to read this, she won't believe my late nights were being spent with having some good clean fun with my CP friends or learning by reading articles. ;P
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Coo
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When writing an article ask yourself "Does this have Zing?" Zing is the hook that draws you in. It's the feeling that the article is giving you what you want. It's sex appeal. A good article leaves you feeling a little bit dirty. Ahem. Perhaps I need to get out more.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
A good article leaves you feeling a little bit dirty.
... what are you subscribed to?
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
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Hi Everybody, I looked at my article's rating and it is just around 2. I thought about it and had a question. What do CPians expect from an article ? Whether it should be completly technical always ? Whether it should cover the topic in great details ? Should there always be a project (ZIP) with the article ? I am sure that the answers will be person dependant, but that will help the new writers or rather users wanting to express themselves, learn the art of writing. And also, please dont misunderstand me for my question. I just want to know how to present your bit of knowledge in a more acceptable format ? I request you all to put in your comments / expectation about article writing so that every one here will benefit / correct there errors. Thanks !
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." -- Doug Linder
coolestCoder
Just look at any article rated 4 or higher by at least 5-10 people, that will give you a good indication. Sometimes all you need are a few words to make an impact, sometimes you need a lot more to explain something small.
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IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 1 out now -
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
When writing an article ask yourself "Does this have Zing?" Zing is the hook that draws you in. It's the feeling that the article is giving you what you want. It's sex appeal. A good article leaves you feeling a little bit dirty.
If my wife were to read this, she won't believe my late nights were being spent with having some good clean fun with my CP friends or learning by reading articles. ;P
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Coo
When I leave CodeProject, I feel low down dirty. ;)
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
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Hi Everybody, I looked at my article's rating and it is just around 2. I thought about it and had a question. What do CPians expect from an article ? Whether it should be completly technical always ? Whether it should cover the topic in great details ? Should there always be a project (ZIP) with the article ? I am sure that the answers will be person dependant, but that will help the new writers or rather users wanting to express themselves, learn the art of writing. And also, please dont misunderstand me for my question. I just want to know how to present your bit of knowledge in a more acceptable format ? I request you all to put in your comments / expectation about article writing so that every one here will benefit / correct there errors. Thanks !
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." -- Doug Linder
coolestCoder
The first thing I look for from an article is a reason to carry on reading past the first paragraph. I'm not saying you have to have a plot - but an introduction saying what problem CFoobleClass will solve would be nice. Or, "I tried X, and failed miserably - so I did lots of research, and here is a guide", or... Etc. If it's for something graphical, a picture (in differing state) is probably next. Then two downloads - one for just the code that is new and shiny, and the other a demo app actually using the new-shiny thing. If it's showing off 20 lines of clever and gnarly code that can be cut and pasted into a function, then downloads are redundant. I try not to be too fussy about the quality of english (within reason) - but it does need to be readable, if not high literature. From memory. Marc Clifton wrote a very good guide on article writing. Feel free to ignore some of the points he makes, but do so for good reason, not neglect. I write articles for the Hero Worship that results - so the better the article, the better the groupies you'll get. So a bit of polish goes a long way. Iain.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
When writing an article ask yourself "Does this have Zing?" Zing is the hook that draws you in. It's the feeling that the article is giving you what you want. It's sex appeal. A good article leaves you feeling a little bit dirty.
If my wife were to read this, she won't believe my late nights were being spent with having some good clean fun with my CP friends or learning by reading articles. ;P
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Coo
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
she won't believe my late nights were being spent with having some good clean fun with my CP friends
So you are saying you don't want her to realise that you can --- never mind. I don't want my kid sister to read about all the fun things you can do on CP.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
she won't believe my late nights were being spent with having some good clean fun with my CP friends
So you are saying you don't want her to realise that you can --- never mind. I don't want my kid sister to read about all the fun things you can do on CP.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
:laugh: Yes, I mean just that! :laugh:
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Coo
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The first thing I look for from an article is a reason to carry on reading past the first paragraph. I'm not saying you have to have a plot - but an introduction saying what problem CFoobleClass will solve would be nice. Or, "I tried X, and failed miserably - so I did lots of research, and here is a guide", or... Etc. If it's for something graphical, a picture (in differing state) is probably next. Then two downloads - one for just the code that is new and shiny, and the other a demo app actually using the new-shiny thing. If it's showing off 20 lines of clever and gnarly code that can be cut and pasted into a function, then downloads are redundant. I try not to be too fussy about the quality of english (within reason) - but it does need to be readable, if not high literature. From memory. Marc Clifton wrote a very good guide on article writing. Feel free to ignore some of the points he makes, but do so for good reason, not neglect. I write articles for the Hero Worship that results - so the better the article, the better the groupies you'll get. So a bit of polish goes a long way. Iain.
Thanks ! You explained in a good stepwise manner.
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." -- Doug Linder
coolestCoder
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Hi Everybody, I looked at my article's rating and it is just around 2. I thought about it and had a question. What do CPians expect from an article ? Whether it should be completly technical always ? Whether it should cover the topic in great details ? Should there always be a project (ZIP) with the article ? I am sure that the answers will be person dependant, but that will help the new writers or rather users wanting to express themselves, learn the art of writing. And also, please dont misunderstand me for my question. I just want to know how to present your bit of knowledge in a more acceptable format ? I request you all to put in your comments / expectation about article writing so that every one here will benefit / correct there errors. Thanks !
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." -- Doug Linder
coolestCoder
coolestCoder wrote:
What do CPians expect from an article ?
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Originality, not 100%, but enough so that it is unique. Improving on someone else's idea qualifies.
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Grammatically correct with no spelling errors.
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Use of pictures where appropriate.
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State the article's purpose (i.e., what problem is it trying to solve) within the first few paragraphs, and then show the steps involved in meeting that purpose.
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While code snippets are helpful, don't make that the focal point of the article.
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Consistency matters.
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it." - Ellen Goodman
"To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have deference for others governs our manners." - Laurence Sterne
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At first look, better formating would definitely help. At the second look, some working example would be nice (yes, downloadable project). btw you say one of missing features in NUnit is UI testing, and then you say "UI testing is not supported in the current version of unit testing with VS.NET 2008". Which is NOT, imho, something anyone is interested to know :) Also I don't know if "4. You cannot run NUnit test cases from within VS.NET 2008. You will need separate EXE to do that (The NUnit framework)" is true, at least for VS2005 there are ways how to integrate NUnit (from run as external tool to TestDriven.NET or similar plugin).
[My Blog]
"Visual studio desperately needs some performance improvements. It is sometimes almost as slow as eclipse." - Rüdiger Klaehn
"Real men use mspaint for writing code and notepad for designing graphics." - Anna-Jayne Metcalfednh wrote:
At the second look, some working example would be nice (yes, downloadable project).
Like this?
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it." - Ellen Goodman
"To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have deference for others governs our manners." - Laurence Sterne
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Hi Everybody, I looked at my article's rating and it is just around 2. I thought about it and had a question. What do CPians expect from an article ? Whether it should be completly technical always ? Whether it should cover the topic in great details ? Should there always be a project (ZIP) with the article ? I am sure that the answers will be person dependant, but that will help the new writers or rather users wanting to express themselves, learn the art of writing. And also, please dont misunderstand me for my question. I just want to know how to present your bit of knowledge in a more acceptable format ? I request you all to put in your comments / expectation about article writing so that every one here will benefit / correct there errors. Thanks !
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." -- Doug Linder
coolestCoder
You can't please everybody. Just write your articles the way you'd want others to. I've had people complain that I rarely include a demo project. But most of what I write are library routines and classes that I compile from the command line so I have no project. Plus a C# VS project may be useless to someone using VB or C#Builder even though they can use the C# code with little trouble. I also suspect that some mark down articles simply because the code won't help them right then and there (even though it may save their job later). Others may mark down an article that is better than a similar one they wrote. If you're article is rated low but there are no comments, just ignore the rating. Often when I'm writing an article I wish there were a peer review committee (more than just the editors) to give feedback.
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coolestCoder wrote:
What do CPians expect from an article ?
-
Originality, not 100%, but enough so that it is unique. Improving on someone else's idea qualifies.
-
Grammatically correct with no spelling errors.
-
Use of pictures where appropriate.
-
State the article's purpose (i.e., what problem is it trying to solve) within the first few paragraphs, and then show the steps involved in meeting that purpose.
-
While code snippets are helpful, don't make that the focal point of the article.
-
Consistency matters.
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it." - Ellen Goodman
"To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have deference for others governs our manners." - Laurence Sterne
DavidCrow wrote:
Use of pictures where appropriate.
And only where appropriate.
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Hi Everybody, I looked at my article's rating and it is just around 2. I thought about it and had a question. What do CPians expect from an article ? Whether it should be completly technical always ? Whether it should cover the topic in great details ? Should there always be a project (ZIP) with the article ? I am sure that the answers will be person dependant, but that will help the new writers or rather users wanting to express themselves, learn the art of writing. And also, please dont misunderstand me for my question. I just want to know how to present your bit of knowledge in a more acceptable format ? I request you all to put in your comments / expectation about article writing so that every one here will benefit / correct there errors. Thanks !
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." -- Doug Linder
coolestCoder
Don't ask me, some of my articles get unnecessarily low votes because people don't even bother to read the introduction. For the highest vote count I recommend a lot of multimedia to wow audiences and a offshore team in India to come in and give you +5's because you will +5 them.
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