Article Writing

Article on large topic should be splitted or kept in a single page?

23-Mar-19 7:17

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M.D.V.

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Andrea Simonassi20-Mar-19 12:59

Andrea Simonassi

20-Mar-19 12:59

Hi everybody, in my few spare time I am creating a new article on the subject "multiple precision arithmetic" (MP for short).

I wrote about arithmetics sharing code snippets, at the end of the article I will present source code which runs unit tests and most notably collects statistics of different MP implementation.

I don't know what length an article should be, I just know the stuff I have is quite long. I'm afraid that a single long page could discourage audience, i could strip some paragraphs but I already removed much in the effort to balance clarity and brevity, I'd rather prefer to write a series of 5 articles.

I did not found on guidelines "what when and where" it is considered good practice to split long articles into chapters. There are limitations? Suggestions?

Best
Andrea

Re: Article on large topic should be splitted or kept in a single page?

Nelek21-Mar-19 0:51

Re: Article on large topic should be splitted or kept in a single page?

21-Mar-19 0:51

There are both possibilities:
Authors that like to post a big single object
Authors that like a lot do series "1 from N" format.

As long as the single articles don't get too short, and they finish what they start.... I would have no problem.

5 Articles is something manageable. I don't know what is the content, but a possible arrangement could be:
1 - Why, was, Theory background...
2 - Overview about what is coming with snippets and light explanations, how to use it and so on
3 - most interesting parts with deep explanations part 1
4 - most interesting parts with deep explanations part 2
5 - Explanations about the unit tests and statistics functionality that you mention. Practical use cases, comparisons and conclusions

Whole code and example project as a download in all or at least #3, #4 and #5

I personally think it is better if you prepare the work and use the draft functionality to write everything, and then publish with links to each other part in each article at the end, when everything is done. I don't like unfinished things and having to wait to understand the big picture.

Andrea Simonassi22-Mar-19 8:12

Andrea Simonassi

22-Mar-19 8:12

Hi, thank you for answering.

I will follow your advice to publish all at once when ready then.

My goal is show (to who is interested) ideas about how to create their own MP library, being myself just an amateur on this kind of stuff.

I think to title the series "Teaching arithmetic to a computer" or maybe "The Big Integer Challenge" and divide the article into parts that could be viewed independently, all the code needed to study and build your own implementation is embedded on article.

Part #1 the sum

Sample summary:
* define sum, simple sum primitive to build long sum, base 10
* carry properties and implication
* from base 10 to any other base (specifically CPU register sized digits)
* The Long Sum algorithm, with flow chart
* carry propagation, carry detection on higher level languages
* listing in C language and x64 assembler with comments
* bar chart for above implementation timings
* Appendix

Part #2 the subtraction, Part #3 the multiplication
Part #4 the division: this will probably be the longest one.

Part #5 the arithmetic challenge: (did not start writing yet)
* show how to use the toy framework i created in order to validate other implementation and compare performance to the reference implementation
* evidence parts that need to be changed if porting the code outside of windows environment or different hardware platforms.
* install Microsft assembler extension on Visual Studio
* show how to create basic statistic from csv dataset generated by the program,
* (maybe) challenge the community members to fork and create new fastest implementation

In total the document should be like 50 printed pages if on WORD, kind of 8-12 pages per article.

Could that be ok? Which is a good measure of an article lenght expressed as "printed page"?

What about the source code, should I add it just once to the latest article? Because all the relevant sources are in a single project.

Best
Andrea

Re: Article on large topic should be splitted or kept in a single page?

Nelek22-Mar-19 8:35

22-Mar-19 8:35

I am not a big writer myself, so I can only give my opinion.
As far as I know, there is no real "regulation", there are only minimum requirements. Not sure if you alredy have done it, but I recommend you to have a look into: https://www.codeproject.com/KB/FAQs/[^]
you will find some help about the site, how to publish and what tools you have to do it. I.e.:
Code Project Article FAQ[^]
Code Project Tags FAQ[^]
(just in case... CodeProject Plagiarism FAQ[^])

or the author resources (https://www.codeproject.com/KB/mentor/[^]). I.e:
Using the Article Editor (without losing your hair in handfuls)[^]
Article Formatting tips for CodeProject[^]
Formatting code in Tips and Tricks[^]
Markdown[^]

asimonassi wrote:
I think to title the series "Teaching arithmetic to a computer" or maybe "The Big Integer Challenge" and divide the article into parts that could be viewed independently, all the code needed to study and build your own implementation is embedded on article.

Sounds good for me

asimonassi wrote:
In total the document should be like 50 printed pages if on WORD, kind of 8-12 pages per article.

Sounds good for me

asimonassi wrote:
What about the source code, should I add it just once to the latest article? Because all the relevant sources are in a single project.

You can attach it to every article as a download and post the most relevant and related snippets in the article to explain things
or...
You can post the most relevant and related snippets in the article to explain things and say that the whole download is on the last article of the serie, so that the reader knows where to find it.

Another thing I would do to help the readers is to keep a list of the links of the serie in all articles, so one can navigate without problems from one article to another. I mean:

In Article 1:
https://www.codeproject.com/article/part_1_of_5.aspx <<< this article (notice the no-clickability)
https://www.codeproject.com/article/part_2_of_5.aspx[^]
https://www.codeproject.com/article/part_3_of_5.aspx[^]
...

In Article 2:
https://www.codeproject.com/article/part_1_of_5.aspx[^]
https://www.codeproject.com/article/part_2_of_5.aspx <<< this article (notice the no-clickability)
https://www.codeproject.com/article/part_3_of_5.aspx[^]
...

M.D.V.

What to do with this?

Nelek18-Mar-19 1:21

Re: What to do with this?

18-Mar-19 1:21

Dynamically Configure web.config Connection String Input from Custom Window of Web Setup Installer[^] was not approved yet. First version was closed (I don't know why) and all other 5 pending.
But as it was edited by a CP-Editor got approved directly.

Not sure if quality is enough to even stay. But it now is out of moderation.

Maybe the "instant automatic approval" by CP Editors should be bypassed as default, I mean not changing the status on pending articles?

M.D.V.

Sean Ewington18-Mar-19 3:44

Writing and submitting an article using LibreOffice HTML format

18-Mar-19 3:44

Thank you for the report. The tip has been removed.

Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject

Vaclav_17-Mar-19 4:09

Vaclav_

17-Mar-19 4:09

Can I submit an article written in LibreOffice HTML format?
Is there a way to import this site HTML article writing ( on line) template into LibreOffice?
Thanks
Cheers
Vaclav

Blogs needing help

Nelek14-Mar-19 23:15

14-Mar-19 23:15

Short introduction to parameter packs and fold expressions[^]
and
Fun with unordered containers[^]
By the way... @Sean-Ewington you told you don't like flooding blogs... this guy has posted more than 10 in the last 12 hours after 8 years of... nothing?

M.D.V.

Sean Ewington15-Mar-19 5:16

15-Mar-19 5:16

Thanks for the report. Something tells me I said something like that when there was a guy who submitted 50 poor blog entries. I'm not worried about this guy just yet.

Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject

Nelek15-Mar-19 22:54

15-Mar-19 22:54

One of his blogs need help:
shrink_to_fit that doesn’t suck[^]

M.D.V.

Sean Ewington18-Mar-19 4:07

18-Mar-19 4:07

I'm not sure why one would strikethrough half a blog post and keep it that way. I'm just going to remove it.

Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject

Richard MacCutchan15-Mar-19 5:56

Richard MacCutchan

15-Mar-19 5:56

They are flooding in, and a number of them seem to be just paraphrasing someone else's work. However, since he acknowledges their origin it cannot really be called plagiarism.

Blogs needing help

Nelek13-Mar-19 11:28

13-Mar-19 11:28

Bring your sunglasses:
Introduction into Logging with Loguru[^]
My God, It’s Full of Stars: Implementing the implicit Euler-Method with STL[^]
My God, It’s Full Of Stars: Testing Point Mass Attraction with Catch2[^]

M.D.V.

Sean Ewington14-Mar-19 8:51

14-Mar-19 8:51

My eyes. My eyes.

Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject

Nelek14-Mar-19 12:05

14-Mar-19 12:05

Another one... Think twice, cut once[^]

I think you will have to have some words with him

M.D.V.

Nelek14-Mar-19 12:09

14-Mar-19 12:09

I should have checked first... add:
Using Pointer to Members on STL Algorithms[^]
and
My God, It’s Full Of Stars: And then there was CMake[^]
to the list

M.D.V.

Sean Ewington15-Mar-19 4:06

15-Mar-19 4:06

Done. I don't blame users for our blog aggregator bringing stuff messy. Or asking them to format it when it gets here. It's always been like this.

Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject

Nelek15-Mar-19 11:54

Bug on article "An Introduction to Serverless Functions on Azure"

15-Mar-19 11:54

Sean Ewington wrote:
I don't blame users

Neither do I... I just ask you Wink | ;)

M.D.V.

GKP199211-Mar-19 20:11

GKP1992

11-Mar-19 20:11

modified 12-Mar-19 16:25pm.

Re: Bug on article "An Introduction to Serverless Functions on Azure"

Sean Ewington12-Mar-19 7:03

Re: Bug on article "An Introduction to Serverless Functions on Azure"

12-Mar-19 7:03

Thanks for the report. The issue has been fixed by addressing the image size.

In the future, please report issues to Article Writing Discussion Boards[^] or Bugs and Suggestions[^] just so we don't miss it Wink | ;)

Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject

Nelek12-Mar-19 10:15

Re: Bug on article "An Introduction to Serverless Functions on Azure"

12-Mar-19 10:15

Maybe move it there? Wink | ;)

M.D.V.

Sean Ewington12-Mar-19 10:25