• Dear Cerberus X User!

    As we prepare to transition the forum ownership from Mike to Phil (TripleHead GmbH), we need your explicit consent to transfer your user data in accordance with our amended Terms and Rules in order to be compliant with data protection laws.

    Important: If you accept the amended Terms and Rules, you agree to the transfer of your user data to the future forum owner!

    Please read the new Terms and Rules below, check the box to agree, and click "Accept" to continue enjoying your Cerberus X Forum experience. The deadline for consent is April 5, 2024.

    Do not accept the amended Terms and Rules if you do not wish your personal data to be transferred to the future forum owner!

    Accepting ensures:

    - Continued access to your account with a short break for the actual transfer.

    - Retention of your data under the same terms.

    Without consent:

    - You don't have further access to your forum user account.

    - Your account and personal data will be deleted after April 5, 2024.

    - Public posts remain, but usernames indicating real identity will be anonymized. If you disagree with a fictitious name you have the option to contact us so we can find a name that is acceptable to you.

    We hope to keep you in our community and see you on the forum soon!

    All the best

    Your Cerberus X Team

Is there any StackOverflow alternative?

ddabrahim

Active member
Tutorial Author
Joined
May 3, 2020
Messages
289
Hi all!

In my journey to get to know C/C++ programming and the depths of the rabbit hole, I find my self visiting stackoverflow a lot, however often I have no idea how to even begin to search answers to my problems.

To put a very long story short, I am at the point when I was warned I am going to get banned from StackOverflow if I post a question one more time that does not follow the guidelines that is:

1. Do not post a question that was already asked
-but one question can be asked so many different ways, you have to be a pro to be certain so I can't promise this

2. Always provide a minimal working example
-but when you have no idea it is not always that simple and typos do exists

3. Do your research before asking questions
-but when you have no idea what is it that you missing it is hard to research the unknown and you are not welcome to ask on stackoverflow

4. Do not ask for opinions
-but if you are looking for a library or a code example how do you supposed to ask, such questions are not welcome at stackoverflow

I am getting really pissed off about StackOVerflow and I am only 1 question away from getting banned.

So I am looking for an alternative to ask C/C++ questions.

Would you guys have any recommendations where total noobs and beginners are tolerated to ask total noob and stupid questions and the place is active so you actually get answers too?

I would appreciate any recommendations.

Thank you.
 
For myself, I study tutorials, read books, watch YouTube, study APIs. By then I hardly have any question open. Stack overflow is not a place to ask beginners questions. What do you not get from the stuff I mentioned before? What questions do you ask?
C++ after all is just a dialect. Has a certain syntax and a certain way to code in. But that is true to all programming languages.
 
I've found that if you put your programming question (assuming it's related to Java. C++ etc.) into Google it will generally return pages from Stack Overflow, where someone has previously asked a similar question!

Or it may give useful tutorials etc.

For asking questions, take a look at Reddit - I've never visited https://www.reddit.com/r/C_Programming/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/ or myself, but they might be up your alley. Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp_questions/ was linked on the sidebar of r/cpp and might be the one you want.
 
Last edited:
What questions do you ask?

Well, my questions I would believe are pretty basic, simple, beginner but the community at stack overflow just immediately lock, hide and down vote my questions for one reason or an other.

Most recently, I made a mistake in my code example, guy come in saying "your code does not reproduce it" by the time I have realised why (5 seconds maybe), my question was locked for not providing a working example. This community is savage.
When I manage to keep my questions open for like 10 seconds, I usually get friendly answers but literally my questions don't usually survive more than a few seconds and get locked immediately.

Now if I try to post a question, I get a warning my previous questions was not received well by the community, make sure I follow the guidelines or I risk being banned.

This platform is just not welcoming, not for C/C++ anyway.

What do you not get from the stuff I mentioned before?

I also try to learn from multiple sources but I don't usually follow the example codes 1:1. Instead I try to understand what is happening in the example code and then I go and reproduce it my own way and I always manage to try that 1 thing that I was not supposed to do but I have no idea I was not supposed to do that.

Like recently, managed to get an answer to my question and the reason my code did not work is because I did not initialised the array, at least the first element and when you do that, in certain cases it can collect garbage from memory and mingle up your results. But how am I supposed to know that, literally no tutorial talks about it anywhere when you learn about working with arrays.

if you put your programming question (assuming it's related to Java. C++ etc.) into Google it will generally return pages from Stack Overflow, where someone has previously asked a similar question!

Yes, it is indeed the case most of the time but not always. Sometime I find 0 information about the problems I am experiencing like now when I was collecting garbage from memory. Got 0 results the way I was searching so then I turned to stack overflow and got locked literally 5 seconds later and there is nothing you can do, there is no way to explain your self, even if you fix your question they may or may not unlock it, sometimes when I edit my questions I only get a down vote on top of my locked question. This platform just drive me crazy.

I'll try to be more thorough in the future when I prepare my questions for stack overflow, but I wish there was an alternative.

Take a Reddit - I've never visited https://www.reddit.com/r/C_Programming/ or r/cpp myself, but they might be up your alley.

Thanks, I am going to try that next time.
 
Last edited:
And yes. A short example code that shows a problem will always give you better answers. I tell this people here on the forum ALL the time but they don’t get it and I get flamed by them for doing so.
 
My answer is basically the same as what Mike has posted. Search for dedicated C/C++ forums, they usually have beginners sections. cplusplus.com has a section for beginners. And always post some code if you want to get any answers.

Well, my questions I would believe are pretty basic, simple, beginner but the community at stack overflow just immediately lock, hide and down vote my questions for one reason or an other.
Places like that are usually full of haven't got a clues, stuck up arseholes and claim jumpers only interested in trying to out do others for brownie points, just like social media sites like twatter and facefuck. So it's best not to post on places like that if you want any real answers.

My one and only experience of posting an answer on stack overflow had someone who hadn't got a clue being up voted by some that hadn't even bothered to check the answer that was completely wrong, but the person that got the up votes change their answer so many times and still got it wrong and kept getting up voted. In the end after I'd got the bounty and mister I haven't got a clue changed the answer to what I'd basically had said in the first place.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for all the reply, really appreciate it.

Yes I agree a working code example is very important. What I disagree with however is locking questions immediately literally within seconds.

I also extremely dislike reputation systems where you can go negative. People can literally ruin your reputation who simply disagree with you but it does not mean they are correct and you are wrong but there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Allow people to up vote/like your posts only and not to provide a dislike feature just so much more friendly yet just as effective in my opinion. You either have 1000 likes or 0, you either have reputation or not. Allow people to have negative reputation just frustrating and pure wrong.

Anyway, it won't be the first time I quit using a platform because of such reputation system.
I'm going to attempt to search for dedicated C/C++ forums and communities instead.

Thanks a lot.
 
Good luck. Personally I hate C++ because most of the time I am fighting linking errors than anything else. When I see things like a pointer of a pointer of a pointer, I wonder if it’s creators are just damn crazy. 😅
 
Yes I doubt C/C++ to become my favourite, the pointers and linking libraries just make my head spin, but I figured it is time to move out of my comfort zone and give it a go and see what happens. I have nothing to lose really. Hoping it is going to help me grow, open up some currently locked doors, new opportunities and new perspective even if I'm using a high level language and tools like Cerberus X.

Thanks.
 
The things that bug me with C/C++
Trying to remember what headers to use for which library and the function syntax.
Linking static libraries, a real pain at times.
Cryptic error messages.
And keeping track of memory allocations.

There are times when I'm tempted to go with using rust, but I'm sure that will have it own quirks.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit if a future iteration of Visual Studio will have an option to install it just like Microsoft did with clang.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom