Feedback wanted

[Combuster]

Due to the several (heated) discussions about the forum, this poll is to get a good overview of people's opinions.

Your vote helps us improve this community

Many of you probably don't read all the forums, or do not engage in the several running discussions about the website. That means that most of the opinions heard so far are from the regulars and senior staff, which gives us a limited indication of what the newcomers think. Which is exactly why I hope you will answer the poll.

The poll is anonymous and will run for a month. You are however free to post an elaboration of your opinion. Try not to respond to other people's replies. (Offtopic replies will be removed.)

[Solar]

I voted "regular; newcomer's level too low".

To elaborate, I do not refer to the level of programming skill. We all started once, and there is nothing annoying about a beginner's question unless it's violating everything good in netiquette - reading forum rules first, searching the web first, asking questions the smart way.

[edfed]

i don't care about ego.
i don't care about poorness of code.

i just care about the lack of ASM code and performances.

bulding oses with C or C++ seems to me to be obsolete and totally wastefull.

then, only asm, and i just know the right place to work in ASM.

then, i just wait to have a working os to share it with you and proove that C is endless.

[suthers]

I wrote the posted the post as a result of which Combuster made this poll, so my views are clear (For those who didn't read my post I think there are to many people who are starting with OSdev, there not actually learning to code and stitching stuff together from the wiki, etc.. and then when they have a problem they paste a load of their code, give no info and ask us what's wrong... and that can be quite annoying...)
Jules

Edit: edfed your link is wrong you typed htp as the protocol here's a working link: http://board.flatassembler.net/

[lukem95]

although i think that a lot of the noob questions on here could be easily solved by the poster, and that there are people on this forum not ready for OS development, in general the newcomers have a good programming background.

plus after almost a year i count myself as a regular

[pcmattman]

I would consider myself a regular (even though in the past couple of months I've been a bit busy with school and life in general), and I have noticed a lot of questions coming in lately from people who have just started programming and want to take on an OS as their first project.

I remember when I used to be in that boat, way back in primary school. My IT teacher let me go ahead with my project (a massive game in Python) and so I excitedly started working on it. Within about a week or two I was stuck with so much code and so much to think about that I gave up. IMO, it should be the same here - give prods in the right direction, but don't give code, and definitely mention that they might not have the required skills. In my case above, I was able to show my teacher that I had an understanding of the language, and any help I needed was in person (so I could show him the code, show him why it doesn't work, and effectively ask a Smart Question).

Of course, if a newcomer comes and wants "xyz" (ie, "I want code to setup the GDT. Thanks.") then we pull out the "Smart Questions" and "Forum Rules" links .

[piranha]

Seeing as I remember reading these forums on mega-tokyo, and have many posts, I voted as a regular.

I like the way that this is going, however there is the noob factor, more noobs posting about simple questions (or questions where the answer is to not make the TSS a local variable, but they don't understand).

-JL

[iammisc]

I voted that the level's getting too low. For example take this post. Someone who's asking something like that should first learn how to use basic tools that he's going to need. Also, I've noticed the rise in questions that are so bleeding obvious that google suggest will probably give you the answer before you even click the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button.

Maybe it's just that I've been on these forums for a while and I'm just now coming to notice a trend that's been going on forever, but it seems that people don't even want to search for a duplicate question. Sometimes I'll see the exact same questions posted a day after each other or a duplicate question that could be discovered by simply scrolling down a little.

Well, that's just my 2 cents anyway. *sigh*

[Cognition]

I consider myself newer to these boards, but not to programming in general. I've only made a few posts, but have been reading these forums and using them as a reference for a few months.

Personally I think that the bulk of newer members do come in without doing the proper research, but at the same time I think there are some things that can be done to improve it in terms of available resources. From what I've seen the vast majority of easier to solve problems seem to deal with many users not knowing how to debug their code very well. I think in general this could be documented better in the wiki. There are some links under troubleshooting but they don't really go much beyond exception handlers, which tend to be above the heads of a lot of first time posters working on things like getting to pmode or loading a gdt. In general I think something like better documentation of using bochs/qemu's internal debuggers and objdump would help some beginners solve some of their own basic problems a bit better.

I've found a lot of posts by the regulars tend to be very well informed and have years of experience in a given industry to back it up with. I think sometimes though this can make things feel stuffy or business like though. I've felt a few times that if something I posted was questioned or someone felt it was inaccurate, that it recieved somewhat curt responses. I do understand that proper documentation and research are important parts of OS development but I think for hobby projects the tone is a bit unnecessary and ultimately serves to discourage people from posting again.

In general though I think this is a good collection of resources and pretty much any question can be solved through searcing properly, following the right links or just reading specifications a bit more carefully. I find this site/forum to be a very good resource overall though.

[DeletedAccount]

I am regular since i am a second year computer science student . I find this place great . Most of the people answer my questions and i did learn a lot by reading the wiki and a reading other peoples posts and their code , some members were also very inspiring . But sometimes i cannot be a regular coz of i do not have regular net connection and during examinations my sleep reduces to 0 to 2 hours ...... . bye for nuw ...

[JAAman]

im a regular, (since long before the merger... regular on both boards since... maybe 2000? something like that...)


i personally dont think much has changed as for the questions of newer people

however i have seen a change in the regulars, they seem much less friendly and more... impatient than they used to be (even people who were already more that way have gotten much worse)

which is part of the reason i dont post as much anymore (also, by the time i get up in the morning, all the questions have already been answered, and time... there just isnt enough of it)

[svdmeer]

I miss an option for new members & level of (other) new members is too low. This topic is so stupid: http://www.osdev.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17081
This is not good for the whole forum-level.

[tadada]

This place is great. I joined like a month ago but don't post much. Just mostly come to read and learn. Everybody is very helpful as long as you ask smart questions. I think that as long as people remeber to ask smart questions and those that awnser be polite (which most people are, not saying people arn't polite, all the snapping/impolitness whatever you want to call it I've seen is when people don't ask smart questions or ask vague ones) everything is good. I think that most people here are very patient (kinda hafta be patient to make an os) and that helps a lot.

[Combuster]

I miss an option for new members & level of (other) new members is too low.

I would say that fits:
(x) I'm new, I dislike the average level of the other users

[svdmeer]

I miss an option for new members & level of (other) new members is too low.

I would say that fits:
(x) I'm new, I dislike the average level of the other users

I thaught about that option, but I didn't choose it because "the other users" is too common. There are many regulars here with great knowledge. It's only a small group of new members who refuse to search, read manuals or even learn programming basics, and simply missing the basics about OS-internals (bios routines for reading files from a filesystem ).