Quality of Code Project diminishing
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Hey Gus, If you see something that's broken please do let us know about it. Each of us, Chris, Sean, Matthew, Kamil and I, and the whole team, really want to know as soon as possible. I remember a few years ago talking to Chris about 3rd party monitoring services to watch the site and he smiled and said that he would be surprised if an alert came in before he got an email from a member. (fyi we actually have 3 external services and at least 2 internal ones). So please, best is bugs & suggestions which you can see we're very active in: http://www.codeproject.com/suggestions.aspx[^] or if you think the site is *really* broken, an email to webmaster@codeproject.com will do the trick. I do have to say that I'm exceedingly unhappy you feel the quality of the site is going down. We have been working like bandits on new and better features, adding full Git support to articles and allowing them to become full projects along with an amazing developer focused collaborative task management system, and most recently a documentation wiki system for projects. https://workspaces.codeproject.com[^] As for advertising, well that's a tricky balance. I can tell you that minimalist is our general approach, but to be useful the ads have to be effective too, and we try incredibly hard to make them relevant and on-topic as well. Anyway, please do let us know when something is broken, and please understand there are no nefarious intentions. We want to offer an excellent and valuable site to you. Let us know how we can do that better. David
David Cunningham wrote:
I do have to say that I'm exceedingly unhappy you feel the quality of the site is going down. We have been working like bandits on new and better features, adding full Git support to articles and allowing them to become full projects along with an amazing developer focused collaborative task management system, and most recently a documentation wiki system for projects.
i think hes referring to the quality of the articles appearing rather that CP itself. And if thats the case i'd agree and i reckon that part of the issue is that CP is casting it's net too wide (my opinion) Bryce
MCAD ---
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I think that the quality of Code Project is going down. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed but there is no way that I can click on a link and provide the CP staff with a problem (bug) report. CP also needs a bug report tracker that lets me know what's happening. Let's make CP more professional! Chris may believe that ads are important. And to some extent I agree. But the large number of ads is disconcerting. Also when ads hide navigation I am even more concerned.
Gus Gustafson
gggustafson wrote:
I think that the quality of Code Project is going down.
If you are referring to content of CP, then team CP cannot do anything about it. It is members who provide content. If you are referring to the site itself, then as others have mentioned, then bugs and suggestions is the way to go. As far as advertisements are concerned, they are never obstructing anything. They mostly appear right at top which does not bother me. I use Chrome all the time and have never seen any interference. Which device are you using, BTW? If you are too distracted with advertisements, you can always use AdBlock or something similar that your browser supports.
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I think that the quality of Code Project is going down. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed but there is no way that I can click on a link and provide the CP staff with a problem (bug) report. CP also needs a bug report tracker that lets me know what's happening. Let's make CP more professional! Chris may believe that ads are important. And to some extent I agree. But the large number of ads is disconcerting. Also when ads hide navigation I am even more concerned.
Gus Gustafson
Now that is a very hard piece of judgement. Posting in Sugs&Bugs forum, as other already mentioned, is what you need to do to report something buggy. To add up to what other said: the staff gets directly alerted when a post is made in that forum, so you cannot get a more responsive approach. "Large number of ads" is more than unfair. Ads are almost invisible on the desktop PC version of the site (Sorry announcers, I meant "well integrated", not invisible, of course). Maybe they are a bit more intrusive on mobile (what are you using) ? Nobody ever mentioned navigation problems due to ads, what is your setup ?
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Entropy isn't what it used to.
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gggustafson wrote:
Chris may believe that ads are important. And to some extent I agree. But the large number of ads is disconcerting. Also when ads hide navigation I am even more concerned.
So, you would be willing to pay a monthly installment to be here? I could never complain about the existence of advertisements on a totally free site. I would report if an advertisements is preventing navigating the site. I don't recall ever seeing that happen. I'm running Firefox 28.0. I wonder what browser you are running. If you see the "Help" menu item above, then click on that and go to "Bugs and suggestions." If that menu is covered by an advertisement, go to http://www.codeproject.com/suggestions.aspx[^]
It is not a totally free site to me. I hope that I have earned my "free subscription" by my articles and advice. I am not complaining about ads. I am complaining about their number and their misplacement. What's worse is their inappropriateness. I am an experienced developer. I do not need products that help me develop trivial solutions. I believe that a large number of CP members are the same as me. If CP needs a subscription to eliminate ads from pages that I visit, I might even consider paying for it.
Gus Gustafson
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David Cunningham wrote:
I do have to say that I'm exceedingly unhappy you feel the quality of the site is going down. We have been working like bandits on new and better features, adding full Git support to articles and allowing them to become full projects along with an amazing developer focused collaborative task management system, and most recently a documentation wiki system for projects.
i think hes referring to the quality of the articles appearing rather that CP itself. And if thats the case i'd agree and i reckon that part of the issue is that CP is casting it's net too wide (my opinion) Bryce
MCAD ---
bryce wrote:
i reckon that part of the issue is that CP is casting it's net too wide
In what way? Do you mean: accepting a lesser quality than we should, or accepting articles on article we shouldn't? I built CodeProject to help me and my fellow addicts programmers share and learn, and as I grow and avoid maturing my journey's taken me way, way off the path I initially set out upon. We've gone from MFC and C++ to ASP, C#, VB, Java and will continue on with node, Ruby, Objective-C, Go, F# and whatever else a dev needs to know to get their job done. At a quick count I'm dealing with 10 languages or sub-languages across 4 major operating systems day in, day out, and I'm not as knee deep in this as I used to be. That's actually scary (the number of languages, not that I'm not as knee-deep. I know you count that as a blessing)
cheers Chris Maunder
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I think that the quality of Code Project is going down. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed but there is no way that I can click on a link and provide the CP staff with a problem (bug) report. CP also needs a bug report tracker that lets me know what's happening. Let's make CP more professional! Chris may believe that ads are important. And to some extent I agree. But the large number of ads is disconcerting. Also when ads hide navigation I am even more concerned.
Gus Gustafson
You've raised a number of issues, so let me address one by one. First, we've just launched Workspaces[^] and a central piece of this is ::Tasks - which we ourselves are now using to track bugs and suggestions[^]. Previous to us using this we've had the Bugs and Suggestions forum[^] for years. Further, you also are familiar with our email as you've emailed Sean and myself numerous times with your insightful suggestions. Please keep sending them. So there are plenty of ways for you to contact us. Second, I do believe ads are important - they pay the rent - but there's a balance too and we are investing an absolute ton of time into ensuring the ads we show are sensible, relevant to developers and of a certain quality. At the moment we're experimenting with a new ad provider and some of the ads aren't relevant, but every single day we go through them and block the ones that are unsuitable. Further, we allow you guys to vote on the ads that you don't like, and Google themselves (when they are the ad provider) allow you to block the ads. This is an ongoing effort to keep the ads to a sufficient level. With regards to ads hiding navigation, please let me know where this is happening. Our ads are kept extremely well-penned and aren't allowed to cause havoc. If they are then that's a problem we won't tolerate.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Hey Gus, If you see something that's broken please do let us know about it. Each of us, Chris, Sean, Matthew, Kamil and I, and the whole team, really want to know as soon as possible. I remember a few years ago talking to Chris about 3rd party monitoring services to watch the site and he smiled and said that he would be surprised if an alert came in before he got an email from a member. (fyi we actually have 3 external services and at least 2 internal ones). So please, best is bugs & suggestions which you can see we're very active in: http://www.codeproject.com/suggestions.aspx[^] or if you think the site is *really* broken, an email to webmaster@codeproject.com will do the trick. I do have to say that I'm exceedingly unhappy you feel the quality of the site is going down. We have been working like bandits on new and better features, adding full Git support to articles and allowing them to become full projects along with an amazing developer focused collaborative task management system, and most recently a documentation wiki system for projects. https://workspaces.codeproject.com[^] As for advertising, well that's a tricky balance. I can tell you that minimalist is our general approach, but to be useful the ads have to be effective too, and we try incredibly hard to make them relevant and on-topic as well. Anyway, please do let us know when something is broken, and please understand there are no nefarious intentions. We want to offer an excellent and valuable site to you. Let us know how we can do that better. David
David, I do not suggest some nefarious purpose. Just mis-guided. Let's look at the two pages to which you referred me. In both cases, I enter the pages with a fixed format using IE9 Win7. Bugs and Suggestions The first thing I notice is that two collections are displayed: Bugs and Suggestions and The current TODO list. I believe that these two collections should appear on two distinct pages. Note too that at the bottom of Bugs and Suggestions there is the familiar CP page navigation controls for the other pages in Bugs and Suggestions. But following that is a line of inappropriate classification choices, a line of flags, and a line of instructions. What are they for? I notice is that I cannot collapse items that have sub items under them. It appears that someone "sliced and diced" the format of the Lounge. This causes a problem displaying the whole page. Especially The current TODO list. When I go down to The current TODO list, at the bottom I see "Displaying 26 tasks out of 39". There is no familiar CP page navigation control to let me view the other 13 tasks. Adding "You can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate" is hardly useful. I suggest a redesign of the Bugs and Suggestions page that removes these concerns. Workspaces On the Workspaces page I find "Connect to GitMachine using your favourite [sic] Git client (XCode, Visual Studio 2013, EGit for Eclipse) and upload your code or clone from a remote repository." I don't use VS 2013. Are you limiting Workspaces to CP members who use VS 2013? I use VS 2008 because it does exactly what I need without bloat. But I guess that my real question is "Why Workspaces at all?" What unfulfilled need of the CP membership is satisfied by this dubious feature? All I want to do is to click on the Download buttons found in an article.
Gus Gustafson
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bryce wrote:
i reckon that part of the issue is that CP is casting it's net too wide
In what way? Do you mean: accepting a lesser quality than we should, or accepting articles on article we shouldn't? I built CodeProject to help me and my fellow addicts programmers share and learn, and as I grow and avoid maturing my journey's taken me way, way off the path I initially set out upon. We've gone from MFC and C++ to ASP, C#, VB, Java and will continue on with node, Ruby, Objective-C, Go, F# and whatever else a dev needs to know to get their job done. At a quick count I'm dealing with 10 languages or sub-languages across 4 major operating systems day in, day out, and I'm not as knee deep in this as I used to be. That's actually scary (the number of languages, not that I'm not as knee-deep. I know you count that as a blessing)
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris, don't be so touchy. You did the programming community a significant service. We have all benefitted from your hard work. I suggested that a current CP project was going to produce less-than-desired results. You didn't listen and unfortunately my prediction has been borne out by the quality of the submissions. My view is that CP is a great site. It does what its founder wanted it to do. But CP is taking off in a strange direction. Maybe you can rein it in. Anyway, thanks for the site.
Gus Gustafson
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You've raised a number of issues, so let me address one by one. First, we've just launched Workspaces[^] and a central piece of this is ::Tasks - which we ourselves are now using to track bugs and suggestions[^]. Previous to us using this we've had the Bugs and Suggestions forum[^] for years. Further, you also are familiar with our email as you've emailed Sean and myself numerous times with your insightful suggestions. Please keep sending them. So there are plenty of ways for you to contact us. Second, I do believe ads are important - they pay the rent - but there's a balance too and we are investing an absolute ton of time into ensuring the ads we show are sensible, relevant to developers and of a certain quality. At the moment we're experimenting with a new ad provider and some of the ads aren't relevant, but every single day we go through them and block the ones that are unsuitable. Further, we allow you guys to vote on the ads that you don't like, and Google themselves (when they are the ad provider) allow you to block the ads. This is an ongoing effort to keep the ads to a sufficient level. With regards to ads hiding navigation, please let me know where this is happening. Our ads are kept extremely well-penned and aren't allowed to cause havoc. If they are then that's a problem we won't tolerate.
cheers Chris Maunder
Please see my response to David.
Gus Gustafson
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Chris, don't be so touchy. You did the programming community a significant service. We have all benefitted from your hard work. I suggested that a current CP project was going to produce less-than-desired results. You didn't listen and unfortunately my prediction has been borne out by the quality of the submissions. My view is that CP is a great site. It does what its founder wanted it to do. But CP is taking off in a strange direction. Maybe you can rein it in. Anyway, thanks for the site.
Gus Gustafson
Not being touchy Gus, I'm trying to understand what Ads are blocking your navigation. [Edit: and I'm getting crossed wires here! You responded to my response from Brycey, and I'd like to hear his thoughts since I think his concerns are different from yours] With regards to the "Current CP Project" do you mean the HTML contest or The Guild?
cheers Chris Maunder
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David, I do not suggest some nefarious purpose. Just mis-guided. Let's look at the two pages to which you referred me. In both cases, I enter the pages with a fixed format using IE9 Win7. Bugs and Suggestions The first thing I notice is that two collections are displayed: Bugs and Suggestions and The current TODO list. I believe that these two collections should appear on two distinct pages. Note too that at the bottom of Bugs and Suggestions there is the familiar CP page navigation controls for the other pages in Bugs and Suggestions. But following that is a line of inappropriate classification choices, a line of flags, and a line of instructions. What are they for? I notice is that I cannot collapse items that have sub items under them. It appears that someone "sliced and diced" the format of the Lounge. This causes a problem displaying the whole page. Especially The current TODO list. When I go down to The current TODO list, at the bottom I see "Displaying 26 tasks out of 39". There is no familiar CP page navigation control to let me view the other 13 tasks. Adding "You can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate" is hardly useful. I suggest a redesign of the Bugs and Suggestions page that removes these concerns. Workspaces On the Workspaces page I find "Connect to GitMachine using your favourite [sic] Git client (XCode, Visual Studio 2013, EGit for Eclipse) and upload your code or clone from a remote repository." I don't use VS 2013. Are you limiting Workspaces to CP members who use VS 2013? I use VS 2008 because it does exactly what I need without bloat. But I guess that my real question is "Why Workspaces at all?" What unfulfilled need of the CP membership is satisfied by this dubious feature? All I want to do is to click on the Download buttons found in an article.
Gus Gustafson
gggustafson wrote:
I believe that these two collections should appear on two distinct pages
They do. Tasks is on http://www.codeproject.com/tasks.aspx[^] but I slipped Tasks at the bottom of Bugs and Suggestions for purely selfish reasons: it's easier to but and paste between the Bugs and Suggestions discussions and the actual TODO list)
gggustafson wrote:
notice is that I cannot collapse items that have sub items under them
In Tasks or the Bugs and suggestions page? The Tasks hierarchy is definitely collapsible. What browser are you using?
gggustafson wrote:
When I go down to The current TODO list, at the bottom I see "Displaying 26 tasks out of 39".
The Filter control at the top of Tasks opens this up. Keyboard shortcuts are extremely valuable for some of us, but I understand they aren't for everyone.
gggustafson wrote:
I use VS 2008
Try this Git Source Control Provider[^] for VS 2008. There's lots of options for everyone. As to the Why please see An Introduction to Workspaces::Git for Windows users[^] and An Introduction to Workspaces::Tasks[^]
cheers Chris Maunder
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David, I do not suggest some nefarious purpose. Just mis-guided. Let's look at the two pages to which you referred me. In both cases, I enter the pages with a fixed format using IE9 Win7. Bugs and Suggestions The first thing I notice is that two collections are displayed: Bugs and Suggestions and The current TODO list. I believe that these two collections should appear on two distinct pages. Note too that at the bottom of Bugs and Suggestions there is the familiar CP page navigation controls for the other pages in Bugs and Suggestions. But following that is a line of inappropriate classification choices, a line of flags, and a line of instructions. What are they for? I notice is that I cannot collapse items that have sub items under them. It appears that someone "sliced and diced" the format of the Lounge. This causes a problem displaying the whole page. Especially The current TODO list. When I go down to The current TODO list, at the bottom I see "Displaying 26 tasks out of 39". There is no familiar CP page navigation control to let me view the other 13 tasks. Adding "You can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate" is hardly useful. I suggest a redesign of the Bugs and Suggestions page that removes these concerns. Workspaces On the Workspaces page I find "Connect to GitMachine using your favourite [sic] Git client (XCode, Visual Studio 2013, EGit for Eclipse) and upload your code or clone from a remote repository." I don't use VS 2013. Are you limiting Workspaces to CP members who use VS 2013? I use VS 2008 because it does exactly what I need without bloat. But I guess that my real question is "Why Workspaces at all?" What unfulfilled need of the CP membership is satisfied by this dubious feature? All I want to do is to click on the Download buttons found in an article.
Gus Gustafson
gggustafson wrote:
But I guess that my real question is "Why Workspaces at all?" What unfulfilled need of the CP membership is satisfied by this dubious feature?
Collaboration, I find it brilliant. I've been working on and off on a project that's simply to big for me. As soon as I have a functional embryo I will let other people in on it and add functionality to the article/project.
gggustafson wrote:
All I want to do is to click on the Download buttons found in an article.
You can still do that, cant you? It's added functionality without any of the old functionality removed. Right?
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello[^]
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gggustafson wrote:
I believe that these two collections should appear on two distinct pages
They do. Tasks is on http://www.codeproject.com/tasks.aspx[^] but I slipped Tasks at the bottom of Bugs and Suggestions for purely selfish reasons: it's easier to but and paste between the Bugs and Suggestions discussions and the actual TODO list)
gggustafson wrote:
notice is that I cannot collapse items that have sub items under them
In Tasks or the Bugs and suggestions page? The Tasks hierarchy is definitely collapsible. What browser are you using?
gggustafson wrote:
When I go down to The current TODO list, at the bottom I see "Displaying 26 tasks out of 39".
The Filter control at the top of Tasks opens this up. Keyboard shortcuts are extremely valuable for some of us, but I understand they aren't for everyone.
gggustafson wrote:
I use VS 2008
Try this Git Source Control Provider[^] for VS 2008. There's lots of options for everyone. As to the Why please see An Introduction to Workspaces::Git for Windows users[^] and An Introduction to Workspaces::Tasks[^]
cheers Chris Maunder
I slipped Tasks at the bottom of Bugs and Suggestions for purely selfish reasons: it's easier to but \[sic\] and paste between the Bugs and Suggestions discussions and the actual TODO list.I think that you have admitted to messing up the web page. Please undo it. That you would do it for personal reasons is immature and unprofessional!
In Tasks or the Bugs and suggestions page? The Tasks hierarchy is definitely collapsible. What browser are you using?Please read what I said. IE9 on Win7 in fixed format. And my collapsing issue was with Bugs and Suggestions. I will look at Git.
Gus Gustafson
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I think that the quality of Code Project is going down. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed but there is no way that I can click on a link and provide the CP staff with a problem (bug) report. CP also needs a bug report tracker that lets me know what's happening. Let's make CP more professional! Chris may believe that ads are important. And to some extent I agree. But the large number of ads is disconcerting. Also when ads hide navigation I am even more concerned.
Gus Gustafson
gggustafson wrote:
there is no way that I can click on a link and provide the CP staff with a problem (bug) report.
There is a forum to do just that.
gggustafson wrote:
I think that the quality of Code Project is going down. ... Let's make CP more professional!
Before making general value judgements one should at least consider that the one doing the evaluation has in fact changed over time. Thus, for example, one might hope that the observer has become better (even objectively) over time and thus they themselves are now more capable of recognizing a different level of quality than they did sometime in the non-trivial past. If they are in fact better now then that very well could be the sole differentiator of why quality seems to be different.
gggustafson wrote:
Chris may believe that ads are important. And to some extent I agree
Anyone that considers themselves a professional should learn that ads on a free site are the most important thing. Professionals make money and they should consider that others should be allowed to make money as well. And if they don't like ads then consider how much they would like to pay monthly for the service and offer that as an alternative.
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Now that is a very hard piece of judgement. Posting in Sugs&Bugs forum, as other already mentioned, is what you need to do to report something buggy. To add up to what other said: the staff gets directly alerted when a post is made in that forum, so you cannot get a more responsive approach. "Large number of ads" is more than unfair. Ads are almost invisible on the desktop PC version of the site (Sorry announcers, I meant "well integrated", not invisible, of course). Maybe they are a bit more intrusive on mobile (what are you using) ? Nobody ever mentioned navigation problems due to ads, what is your setup ?
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Entropy isn't what it used to.
Rage wrote:
Nobody ever mentioned navigation problems due to ads, what is your setup ?
I have[^]. Happened twice more after that, I believe it's yet another bug in IE.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello[^]
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I slipped Tasks at the bottom of Bugs and Suggestions for purely selfish reasons: it's easier to but \[sic\] and paste between the Bugs and Suggestions discussions and the actual TODO list.I think that you have admitted to messing up the web page. Please undo it. That you would do it for personal reasons is immature and unprofessional!
In Tasks or the Bugs and suggestions page? The Tasks hierarchy is definitely collapsible. What browser are you using?Please read what I said. IE9 on Win7 in fixed format. And my collapsing issue was with Bugs and Suggestions. I will look at Git.
Gus Gustafson
gggustafson wrote:
That you would do it for personal reasons is immature and unprofessional!
Seriously? You think that this is a mature response from you? Insulting Chris. If you want to set a site that does exactly what you want, then start one yourself. I think that Chris is allowed a personal indulgence here considering how much work he's done for the community.
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I think that the quality of Code Project is going down. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed but there is no way that I can click on a link and provide the CP staff with a problem (bug) report. CP also needs a bug report tracker that lets me know what's happening. Let's make CP more professional! Chris may believe that ads are important. And to some extent I agree. But the large number of ads is disconcerting. Also when ads hide navigation I am even more concerned.
Gus Gustafson
I'm just going to say this... When I have a question, I post it and get responses almost immediately... When I want to research a topic, I search and (usually) find what I need almost immediately... If I have the time, I'll contribute occasionally... Everything just "works". I find the sight very helpful and easy to use, and when I have the opportunity I enjoy the company. Everything is well monitored. I've never had any issues with any of the features. I feel the aggressive nature of these posts toward Chris and the team is uncalled for. Frankly, the site is free, and I appreciate everything I have gotten from it over the past few years. If the team wishes to implement feature which make their lives easier... which ultimately makes our experience better... the I say go for it. Calling the team unprofessional is uncalled for, IMO. I'm extremely happy with the way things are, and have no complaints with either the site or the team running it. Just my 2 cents. -Bert
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I'm just going to say this... When I have a question, I post it and get responses almost immediately... When I want to research a topic, I search and (usually) find what I need almost immediately... If I have the time, I'll contribute occasionally... Everything just "works". I find the sight very helpful and easy to use, and when I have the opportunity I enjoy the company. Everything is well monitored. I've never had any issues with any of the features. I feel the aggressive nature of these posts toward Chris and the team is uncalled for. Frankly, the site is free, and I appreciate everything I have gotten from it over the past few years. If the team wishes to implement feature which make their lives easier... which ultimately makes our experience better... the I say go for it. Calling the team unprofessional is uncalled for, IMO. I'm extremely happy with the way things are, and have no complaints with either the site or the team running it. Just my 2 cents. -Bert
Implementing a "feature" that makes the CP staff's lives easier is not a valid reason. It must be to make the authors and answerers lives easier.
Gus Gustafson
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gggustafson wrote:
That you would do it for personal reasons is immature and unprofessional!
Seriously? You think that this is a mature response from you? Insulting Chris. If you want to set a site that does exactly what you want, then start one yourself. I think that Chris is allowed a personal indulgence here considering how much work he's done for the community.
Too bad you didn;t read my earlier response to Chris.
Gus Gustafson
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I think that the quality of Code Project is going down. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed but there is no way that I can click on a link and provide the CP staff with a problem (bug) report. CP also needs a bug report tracker that lets me know what's happening. Let's make CP more professional! Chris may believe that ads are important. And to some extent I agree. But the large number of ads is disconcerting. Also when ads hide navigation I am even more concerned.
Gus Gustafson