I’m just curious, with the threads I’m reading. I thought sitepoint was used by developers, but I’m not so certain now. Just trying to work out if this is a good place to ask more difficult code questions, or if I should look elsewhere?
Cheers.
Depending on your definition, one could say that developers and “code hackers” are pretty much the same thing.
Both of which utilize codes to create or alter things, so the differences between the two aren’t too significant.
There are plenty of hard-core Web developers here, but there are also a lot of people who do it merely as a hobby.
Site Point is a magnificent place to ask both beginner questions as well as advanced ones.
Best of luck to you.
Unfortunately so far I’ve received no “advanced” responses, nor read any, hence my question.
And from legitimate honesty, wanting to work out if this is really a place to learn from at that level.
I guess it depends on what you expect to learn free of charge.
Forums like this are good to get help on particular issues. Not to become an expert on all aspects of web development. I doubt any knowledgeable people learnt their stuff solely from forums. Personally I give more time and detailed answers to paying customers.
I’m not here to “become an expert on all aspects of web development”, after 15 years I’m pretty happy with where I am. I just thought there was more technically advanced users than there are here, is all.
But don’t worry about it, not important.
@deeve007 ; I sort of understand where you’d get the impression that high level developers are few and far between on SP these days. At one point this was the place to be if you were on the bleeding edge of web (and some desktop) development. That seems to have changed over the years… I can still name a few members here who are hardcore coders but they are just a handful compared to just a few years ago.
The discussions have changed too which reflects the changing demographic. There seem to be a lot more questions surrounding point and click, download a theme and add a bunch of features rather than how do I extend the system by accessing hooks of an API. I miss the old days of discussions that dug beneath the surface.
The PHP forum used to include a subforum that contained “PHP Application Design” which was more of the hard core development stuff. The CMS forum use to have a subforum for WordPress which I also thought was a good idea because most WP questions are about configuration and that left the rest of the CMS section open to general CMS development questions about any CMS approach. I tend to think mos people think that this section is only for WP and as a result don’t post or answer questions about anything else.
Oh and look in the articles archives from the last 10 or 12 years… There are some really good articles squirreled away there.
@tunnil: Since you only seem to have 3 posts to your name and a join date of sometime in the past 3 weeks, I suspect your answer about what you get “free of charge” is misguided. If you look into the past 10 - 12 years of discussions on SP, you’ll find that there is a lot of “free” knowledge that has been doled out over the years surrounding MVC, Patterns, OOP, PHP, C#, Java, ASP (Classic), SQL, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, etc… All of it free of charge and all aimed at making us better developers and a better community. That’s the way I look at it anyway.
Thanks for the response/info Andrew, much appreciated. And you’re right in your first paragraph, I did recall when sitepoint was the place to get good technical information. It’s a little disappointing with the majority of forum content now being about point & click apps. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things to a point, but to dominate a forum as it does is just a little disappointing, hence probably need to look elsewhere for that level of technical feedback.
The fact that there’s so many Joomla threads should have alerted me. 
Cheers.
PS: If you know of a good, technically advanced Wordpress developers forum, recommendation would be much appreciated.
I’d look into LinkedIn Groups. There are lots of WP groups and some of them look pretty good. I’ve joined a couple for Drupal development and there’s a bit of development tip and code sharing that goes on. Lots of job-spam to wade through when the groups get popular but lots of good info as well.
As far as SP goes, I’m still hanging in there and I make suggestions regarding the forum architecture every now and then but I don’t understand the direction they’re taking it at the moment. I miss the PHP App Development section and I think the CMS section should be split into two or more sections to cover configuration and code/development.
Anyway, we’ll see how it pans out.
Cheers,
Andrew
Cool, thanks mate, appreciated.
While I totally get where you’re coming from with this thread, I’ve been biting my lip on this one, but I think it bears saying …
The next forum you go to, if you want people to help you, then you might consider a different approach to your introduction.
Not a lot of communities are going to respond well when you ask questions like “This place seems like a bunch of amateurs. Does anyone here even know what the heck they’re doing? Or are you all just a bunch of hacks?”
You might not always get the best response from that.
If you can suggest another way to ask the question then please do, and I’ll take note for next time, I’m not too slow a learner. But I came here to find a resource of a certain type, and if it’s not available here then I’d rather find out sooner than later. I had already come to an initial conclusion from browsing the threads, but figured I might get a more informed response if I asked, however blunt it may seem. And I did, thanks to Andrew above, and so no one needs to waste anyone’s further time. Seems win-win to me.
Plus I don’t really know why anyone would take offence at “code hacker” anyway. For the most part that’s exactly what I am, and would be quite accepting of someone describing me as that. However I am seeking info that’s a little above the code hacker level so I myself can take that step up, and hence my question.
And if someone’s really going to take offence from someone’s post on a public forum then that’s something they need to address, it’s just a web forum, not someone in the pub calling their sister a hooker. I’m pretty sure in a few days you’ll think nothing more of this thread or me, and I likewise. I’m sure we both have more important things to worry about. So apologies for the bluntness, but it achieved the objective, and no animals were harmed in its writing.
Take care.
Dave
Perhaps you could define what you mean by “code hacker”.
When I see “code hacker” that means someone who doesn’t know what they are doing and so tries to take short cuts by cobbling together bits and pieces of code from all sorts of places and then scratches their bum wondering why the heck their code doesn’t work…go figure 
.
Then after giving up trying to fix by themselves what are usually simple and stupid mistakes, they drag their broken code into forums like this one looking for someone to untangle the the code and fix it for free, thinking that forums are just a free debugging service which they are not.
Is the above definition of a code hacker the same as yours?
No.
ok, then until I see yours I’ll stick with mine above.
Christ, you don’t have more important things to worry about?
(and after just 5 posts??)
I suppose it would be reasonable for anyone to ask you the same question, especially since you have only 16 posts
But in any case, what’s the issue here?
I asked for your definition of a code hacker, which you haven’t posted, and I gave you mine so we can compare apples with apples. I don’t see how I can be any fairer than that 
Well, you may not (it seems), but I have plenty more important things to worry about.
Adios.
There are some brilliant people around here, but part of the problem with a forum is that people’s attendance is somewhat random, so on any given day, week or month there’s no guarantee of what help/answers you will get.
Thanks Ralph, appreciate the informed viewpoint.
Cheers.
Ralph, I think there’s more to it and that’s why I didn’t take offense to the bluntness of the thread.
Back in 2006, when deeve07 joined SP, the quality of discussion was far more technically oriented and I think the forum architecture was better suited to getting into those discussions. Over time that has changed. We used to have an application development subsection under PHP where there were deep discussions about design patterns; not just MVC, but all sorts patterns. I did a little posting in there but more often I lurked and learned and then bought books to learn more. Then CMS became CMS & Wordpress which kind of leaves those of us who work on other systems out in the cold… If this has somehow improved SP’s business model or bottom line, well that’s great but I do miss the deep coding and development discussions.
Also, what happened to the “tech times” and other newsletters? Those were great but I don’t remember the last time I read one.
PS: When I think of code hacking, I’m not offended. I remember when being a hacker meant 2600 (http://www.2600.com/) and things like that. Now when I hear hacker or code hacker, I think of Makezine or [URL=“http://hackaday.com/”]Hackaday.