The problem with programming tutorials

moreofless.co.uk

7 points·rhubarbcustard··2 comments

Even Stack Overflow, the saviour of programmers the world over, rarely shows version information in its questions or answers. I recall once, whilst reviewing some changes, that one user had edited another’s question and removed the version number from the tags they has added. Maybe that’s SO’s policy but it is madness.

I agree with the sentiments above, there's no clear policy other than this poorly thought out response by Jeff:

http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/85744/419

I think version specific tags, regardless of whether you're using new functionality or not should be added to a question. If a user is trying to solve a problem in C#2.0 style but you know (from the tags) they're using the 4.0 compiler then you can provide them with a 4.0 specific answer/solution which possibly is more succinct/better.

This also happened in the Sharepoint meta:

http://meta.sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/142/versi...

As someone who was a Sharepoint dev and admin, I found that to be a mistake and inconsistent with other dev sites in the SE network. Even the normally sane and rational Shog got this wrong too:

http://meta.sharepoint.stackexchange.com/a/152/3611

That said, some users just don't know any better when asking questions, some don't even know what version of the tools they're using, or how to find out.

Also include a link to all required materials or better yet put everything they will need in a custom zip file. Including detailed instructions on the install process. We could probably get way more kids into this stuff if better walk-throughs were provided.

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