For alternatives to MailingListMode@CocoaDev see SingleQuestionAndAnswer
With the advent of the RSS feed, it becomes possible to use a wiki in much the same way as a normal mailing list, simply viewing it as a sequence of posts from the perspective, say, of the RecentChanges page.
A wiki is much more than that, simply because each entry is editable. For that reason, and since long before RSS was all the rage, it was possible to eliminate what would turn out to be duplication of effort turned up by a local or google-driven search of the site. As one who believes that fewer links are better than more numerous links in a set of search results, I am not entirely happy with the unfettered use of this wiki in MailingListMode, although I am sure many users find it most useful when it can be used simply as a stream of topics of current interest. If you use it that way, eventually it will become nothing else.
Not that Q-and-A is a bad thing, or even inappropriate at CocoaDev.
If you want to stop MailingListMode, there are three possibilities. 1) Don’t post this kind of question. 2) Don’t answer them, in the hopes that this eventually causes #1. 3) Answer and refactor. #1 is obviously impossible, as new posters obviously don’t read the various HowToUseThisSite-like pages. #2 is dubious in my eyes, leaving #3 as the solution.
Even if the original poster never comes back, at the very least he contributed his question. As far as I could find, this site has no direct answer to the question of “what do I do if my app can’t find a framework at @executable_path/….?” This is a fairly specific question, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Even by just asking the question, he’s shown us something that’s missing, and something that we can improve in the site.
Of course, it would be better if the original poster would take it on himself to refactor the content of the page into something generally useful. OP, if you’re still reading along, please do so.
The information is there, but some particular Q/A is not. While I’m all for getting a better understanding of the situation in order to find the solution, sometimes that just can’t or won’t happen. For someone starting out who just wants to use regular expressions (an example, as in this case), hitting this can be a serious barrier, and one is unlikely to have the foundation necessary to understand ApplicationLinking (hmm, maybe I should write that page to help out…). I think that having special-case Q/As is useful when the problem is common enough.
#2 would work if we could enforce it, and it might even be a good idea, but there are always poor saps like me who will come along and answer stuff. :-)
Concerning relative sophistication, some people just happen to learn from the top down, or from the side. Perhaps (although I doubt this) the OP is fluent in perl or C# or something where regexes are known and common, but dynamic libraries aren’t. I don’t believe that there is any universal ordering of competences; it all depends on how you ended up getting into the field. While I (and probably you) believe that knowing things like C/UNIX programming, binary arithmetic, hexadecimal representations, some assembly, etc., are essential and at least some of these should be known before embarking on anything slightly serious, there are a frightening number of people out there who know none of these and yet are good programmers in the specific domains they inhabit.
– PrimeOperator
I can’t tell if this discussion is still about MailingListMode or not… but, Wikiedia / Mediawiki deal with this rather nicely with TalkPages. Wiki’s are nice because they don’t specify a particular mode of reading or writing content, but they tend to break off into either reference or discussion modes. TalkPages allow both to be linked to the same topic. The regular page can be the reference mode and the TalkPage can be the Q&A and discussion. I don’t participate much in this wiki because it is so chaotic and wavers too much between the two. It’s not enough reference and not enough discussion. I think TalkPages would greatly enhance this site. -J
That’s great, J. You can post the suggestion to CocoaDevMostWanted. In your parlance, MailingListMode is a pretty :”talky” page, while CocoaDevMostWanted is more goal-directed, or at least more specific to your post. In the hands of someone other than a surgeon, a scalpel is just a very, very sharp knife. CocoaDev is primarily an informational site devoted to Cocoa development, although we do have our share of TheoreticalCocoaDiscussions. MailingListMode is usually just a practical question aimed at solving a particular problem. When the question is answered, the results can often be added to existing discussion, or discarded as redundant. And sometimes, happily, a q&A constitutes all there is to say about a topic.
There seems to be the opinion floating around that MailingListMode (or discussions, perhaps) is evil, and that wikis should be encyclopaedic, but I think I personally feel that wikis benefit from being able to be both. I’ll third the TalkPages suggestion, though, as it seems to allow a nice separation.
That said, what isn’t MailingListMode on this site? This page certainly seems to be (: – RobRix