Goal of an article, in general

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Hello

My last article seems to be refused for reasons that make me think about the goals of articles on CodeProject in general.

Comments are:
. "Not an article: If you take away the code block there isnt really much left is there?"
and
. "(..) I think this would be a much better article if you explained the 'how' you do the parsing - tokens, regex, dsl etc
Sometimes its not about the destination, but the journey"

It seems these persons suggest an article should be something else than a solution: an explanation of the used (special) techniques.
But some code, like the one in my Zip, do not involve special techniques and don't need explanations, they are just a simple solution to a problem, using simple and ordinary programming techniques.

The article FAQ says "we need some documentation" and enumerates points my article fit.

In clear, my reflection is: If special techniques and their explanation is a requirement for article, please add this requirement to the FAQ and to the submitting page, as a very important point.

That will avoid authors wasting hours preparing an article and a Zip to be refused for unsaid requirements.
It is a matter of being clear.

Thank you.

Posted 22-Jul-13 4:07am

Christophe Bertrand

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[no name] 22-Jul-13 10:11am

Okay and your question and/or problem is what? What do you expect from the code project community in relation to this?

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 22-Jul-13 13:00pm

Please see my other comments below. I tried to support your right to publish this as an article, but it does not mean that I really like the article.

Can you explain the value of parsing of the assembly name? Parsing itself is not any special, this is a very usual technique. It you can explain why a reader needs such parsing, what qualities of the code could be added based on such parsing, what new effects could be implemented, it would make it a real value.

Besides, think about merging this article with your existing article on universal parser, by creating a next version of it.

Wish you the best of luck,
—SA

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Ron Beyer · Answer 1 · 2013-07-22T04:53:00

Quote:
But some code, like the one in my Zip, do not involve special techniques and don't need explanations, they are just a simple solution to a problem, using simple and ordinary programming techniques.

Along with the comments makes me think that you wrote an article that should be classified as a Tip/Trick instead of an article.

Articles take some topic and expand on them, show a way of solving a problem, or introduce a new technique. Articles should focus greatly on how to accomplish the pieces of the problem or topic, not just a code dump and short explanation of what it does.

Programmers read articles because they are trying to solve a problem. Very rarely does an article solve that problem but some of the pieces may fit. The more pieces you have explained, the better the reader can see how they fit into the problem that they are trying to solve. In submitting an article try to remember that the ultimate goal of your article is typically not in line with your reader, but your reader may be more interested in how you solved the issues rather than the final product.

Christophe Bertrand · Answer 2 · 2013-07-22T05:30:00

Solution 2

Ron, thank you for your argumented answer.

My understanding of the Tip/Tricks category is it is a good place to explain a few-code-lines technique.
A recent article is a good example: two 7-lines examples, a good text that explains the technique, and no Zip archive.

I agree that the word 'article' suggests it will explain a technique.
But what if you want to publish a solution that is not a simple trick nor a technique explanation ?

Let's imagine somebody wants to publish a rather big solution to a common problem, but this solution does not involve any particular technique in its code ?
I do not imagine the author publishing it as a trick.
As an article, it would be more focused on usage of its program than on any technique.

Until now, I thought CodeProject was a good place to publish some useful piece of code with some documentation (as said in the official site's documentation, by the way), something more documented or explained than a pure source code store site as GitHub, but I now understand there are some not-said requirements for the articles.

I don't know if there should be a third way in CodeProject, something as 'solutions', but now it seems clear to me the existing 'article' and 'tip' categories do not fit all usages.

Posted 22-Jul-13 5:30am

Christophe Bertrand

Comments

Richard MacCutchan 22-Jul-13 11:49am

I think you perhaps misunderstand the term "Article". An article is more like a section of a manual or user guide, that tries to explain a specific technique or solution, and uses code to help clarify or illustrate what is written. Posting some blocks of code with a few lines of text that says what it solves is not an article, regardless of how many lines of code there are.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 22-Jul-13 12:56pm

Richard, I don't quite agree. Illustration of known techniques would make a bad article, a questionable post for publication. OP's contribution has a number of problems (please see also my comments to the Ron's solution), but it's actually more of an article than those "like a section of a manual"... Articles should not try to serve as a substitution of the manuals, they should present only original work. Good or bad work — we a free to vote...
—SA

Richard MacCutchan 22-Jul-13 13:18pm

I said "more like", and I did not suggest "Illustration of known techniques".

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 22-Jul-13 13:30pm

Agree, you didn't. Perhaps I did not formulate my concern about other articles clearly, but I still think the denial of this article is questionable, and OP did not really misuse the article. The article is not very good, so I suggested some improvements which actually may or may not worth the effort — please see my new comment to the OP's question itself.
—SA

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 22-Jul-13 12:57pm

Christophe,

You should not post this content as a "Solution". Please move it all to the comment to Ron's solution.
—SA

Christophe Bertrand 23-Jul-13 4:10am

Sergey,
You are right, I clicked a bit quick on the wrong button.

About the kind of publication, personally I imagine three categories:
. Quick tips
A small piece of code, very reusable and adaptable, less than 8 lines.
. Solution
A complete code that solutions a problem. The code can be small or big.
. Article
Mainly a text explaining a technique, testing a software, or anything comparable to an article on paper.
The code should be a set of examples, not a library, an application, or any kind of 'solution'.

The problem on CodeProject seems to be there is no equivalent to the second category. That is why many texts/codes are put in one of the two existing categories but do not fit well in any of them.

Probably, a more reasonable solution would be to have only one category, and have more options in the search page, as search by code size.
That would avoid problems of interpretation, and personal opinions ("Is it a real article ?", "Is it useful ?").
The main preoccupation of a reviewer should be "Is it comprehensible ?".

As Sergey said, the vote system is already here to have pure opinions.

In other words:
. "Is it a real article ?"
is not a reasonable question since the definition of a "good article", or even the simple definition of "article", is questionable.
. "Is it useful ?"
can not be answered by somebody who is not faced to the problem the solution solves. Who can vote for something he does not know anything about or is not interested about ?
. "Is it comprehensible ?"
is a reasonable question because the answer can be argumented and is as independent from a personal opinion as possible. And the answer can be useful to the text/code author and help him to improve his work.

That is why I suggest the CodeProject staff to either give reasonable rules to their reviewers or change the article FAQ (to write clearly the real requirements of an Article).
It is a matter of being clear, inside and outside.

Thank you for your answers and interesting opinions.
Personally I think I have my answer.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 23-Jul-13 10:20am

Thank you, Christophe. In addition to that, there are always the real cases of abuse, so some articles should be denied or reported for abuse and exterminated, as their acceptance was a big mistake. The article in question is of course far from such negative qualities, but I still suggest that it could be improved, perhaps in the ways I mentioned in my comment to the question above.
—SA

Christophe Bertrand 25-Jul-13 3:26am

Thank you Sergey for your suggestions.
I will remind them for my next publications.
For that particular text & code, I finally just put it on my blog, as a quick solution to a small problem other programmers can be faced to.
From now, I beleive I will post my next small code solutions on GitHub or equivalent and on my blog, that seem to be more adapted (or where they will fit better).
Thank you again for your time and effort.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 25-Jul-13 10:47am

Sure.
—SA