Why didn’t codeproject.com develop into what stackoverflow is today | Hacker News Reader

Why didn’t codeproject.com develop into what stackoverflow is today

codeproject.com

6 pointscl8ton6 comments

I'm just a passerby, but it seems like codeproject is mostly windows-focused? Just looking at the front page, I see a lot of .NET, ASP, C#, Java (not windows, of course), but a lot of enterprise-y stuff.

I think part of the success of stack overflow is the wide representation of so many languages, areas of expertise,etc that are there.

ex. I just went to the stackoverflow main page, and the first question listed was objective c, two steps down was a question about neo4j.

Also -- search results probably had something to do with it

Yes CP is primarily geared towards Win, that’s mostly because they pre-date current day languages and frameworks.

But if they could fix comments and apply the same excellent moderation towards todays language, SO would have a definite competitor.

I think they already have a competitor -- just on different grounds. For example, I think most windows devs know much more about CP than SO, but you're not going to find them here, as they're not well represented.

And I think that issue is more generally applied to the communities that hang around most of the startup world/young internet... Most people are more interested in getting started on rails than learning ASP.NET/VB -- and of course, many of the exciting new technologies are not tied into the windows ecosystem, so there isn't much need to get yourself into the windows ecosystem...

I would venture to say that CP needs to do something drastic, rebrand itself (possibly offer a less-cluttered site), and start trying to reach other programming languages/areas more heavily? Not quite sure how you'd do the latter, though

Also, with the stats they have at the top, seems like they certainly have the userbase...

Maybe they could even open up an R&D department, do some advertising to get new hires in it, and start to try and do more experiments? Like for example, if someone were to post on HN tomorrow that CP had a beta site, trying a super interesting new fluid search box, clean redesign, and possibly some drastic interface change, even if it was just a beta, I'd be really interested, and it would definitely get people to view and remember the site...

Again, the R&D team would serve well to get people excited about this. One thing stack overflow doesn't have currently (that I know of) is a code execution testbed. If you gave people a chance to throw some code in fiddles right there on the page, that would be an interesting new feature (and at least a step in the right direction of helping people fix code problems, which is what people go to these sites for), and that would excite people, maybe even spawning a SO copycat feature

Excellent points especially about the fiddles. One thing CP is really heavy into is the C/C++ realm, which can arguably apply to many platforms. I hope Chris Maunder reads HN and can chime in or start a new post on the future direction of CP.

It just seems CP reached a pinnacle years ago and then just let it ride (so to speak)

I have been using codeproject.com for many years because of its high quality posts and still use it today. SO has better advice in the comments.

When searching I’m always pleasantly surprised to see CP come up in the SERP because I know I will find great examples when going there.

I agree. If i am looking for quick advice on something SO is great, while if I am looking for something in depth then CP is often better.

One area I wish CP would improve is its comments. It much harder than it should be to find the great comments.

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