Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

developers.facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 57 posts

Re: Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

#21

Post by reemrevnivek »

darklajid wrote: post #8
reemrevnivek wrote: post #4

See also the blog.stackoverflow.com side of the partnership here: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/facebook-stackoverflow... Basically, it's a siloed version of stackoverflow.com containing only the tags relevant to Facebook. They're thinking about creating mini-sites for other major subdomains (see also http://meta.webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/913/is-this-... ).

Hate the idea. SO's search is decent. This is just the kind of fragmentation that I already don't like about programmers. , unix. etc.. You can easily filter your lists by tags, you can easily search by tag. Where's the benefit?

Purportedly, this works better than filtering by tags.

I'm not sure that this level of filtering is quite necessary, but I think that the community fragmentation is useful: People go to each site (SO, SE, SU, Programmers, etc) with a specific purpose, and the topics on each site are broken up by tags. Trying to filter both purpose and topic on one site would be problematic.

(Also, the Unix/AskUbuntu/SuperUser debacle is a special case, IMO)

Re: Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

#22

Post by true_religion »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #11
DrCatbox wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im sure I dont want that. Does this mean stackoverflow will share their user data with facebook? If so, thats a disaster.

Of course it doesn't mean that, but even if it did, what user data are you talking about? The only non-public info that Stack Overflow has from (some) users is their email address and real name, which Facebook already knows.

But facebook can't associate Real Names with questions asked on stackoverflow.

If they had data-sharing in place, they could.

Re: Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

#23

Post by Simucal »

Sidnicious wrote: post #15

I don't love that facebook.stackoverflow.com looks exactly like stackoverflow.com — there’s no easy way to tell where you are, or to get back to the main stack overflow. Even more confusing, you can get to un-Facebook-related questions on facebook.stackoverflow.com (e.g. from your inbox, or from a user page). Since there are no redirects between regular and Facebook SO, this means that every question on Stack Overflo…

At first I figured they just created a separate SE site specific to Facebook development but it appears to just be a filter on all questions which have a tag that contains "facebook" while hiding all others.

Re: Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

#24

Post by justinph »

pkteison wrote: post #3

I don't see the stack overflow model as being a great fit for what facebook api developers need. The main problem I saw with facebook api was that the right way to do things kept changing, and the docs and forum didn't keep up well. You basically needed to begin facebook API work by reading the entire blog in chronological order and then keep on scanning the dev blog daily, which may work ok if you're a fulltime face…

Many developers I know, myself included, avoid facebook integration like the plague for just this reason. Other services manage to version their APIs and depreciate them gracefully. Facebook apparently doesn't understand how to do this, or simply doesn't care.

Re: Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

#25

Post by [deleted] »

mrtron wrote: post #12
pkteison wrote: post #3

I don't see the stack overflow model as being a great fit for what facebook api developers need. The main problem I saw with facebook api was that the right way to do things kept changing, and the docs and forum didn't keep up well. You basically needed to begin facebook API work by reading the entire blog in chronological order and then keep on scanning the dev blog daily, which may work ok if you're a fulltime face…

I disagree - I find the stack overflow model much better than a wiki. In practice the search on SO is much better than a wiki because of how the questions are phrased. Using your how do I (x) example that is how the SO title would be phrased and that is how a developer searches for a solution. Facebooks API docs are improving too - so this combination of quality docs and SO could be great.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

#26

Post by mgrouchy »

I would imagine that facebook actually writing non-terrible documentation for their API would be a better strategy then integrating with stack overflow.

This can't hurt, but hopefully they don't see it as an replacement for real documentation.

Re: Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

#27

Post by colinsidoti »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #13
mrtron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree - I find the stack overflow model much better than a wiki. In practice the search on SO is much better than a wiki because of how the questions are phrased. Using your how do I (x) example that is how the SO title would be phrased and that is how a developer searches for a solution. Facebooks API docs are improving too - so this combination of quality docs and SO could be great.

The SO model works better is the API never changes - but since it does, a Wiki would probably be best.

I've both responded to SO questions with updates, as well as had one of my top answers be replaced by a newer, better solution. In browsing questions, I've also seen a number of updates to existing answers.

I guess the point is, if you've spent a lot of time figuring something out, and you've proved that a number of solutions on the internet are now wrong, you're tempted to make it easier for the next guy. I think this is true regardless of the medium, but SO seems to have done well at creating an environment where it happens.

Re: Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

#28

Post by ary »

Should I feel better about Facebook trying to crowd-source their developer support? This doesn't address any of the real concerns with usable documentation or proper API deprecation. I get the impression that this is an attempt to spin past bad behavior into acceptable future bad behavior.

Re: Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

#29

Post by unohoo »

I dont think there was anything missing from the existing FB developer forums except for the main missing ingredient - active participation from FB itself.

If they are going to be unresponsive on SO as well, migrating to the SO platform doesnt make sense at all.

Re: Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow

#30

Post by joelhaasnoot »

Simucal wrote: post #23
Sidnicious wrote: post #15

I don't love that facebook.stackoverflow.com looks exactly like stackoverflow.com — there’s no easy way to tell where you are, or to get back to the main stack overflow. Even more confusing, you can get to un-Facebook-related questions on facebook.stackoverflow.com (e.g. from your inbox, or from a user page). Since there are no redirects between regular and Facebook SO, this means that every question on Stack Overflo…

At first I figured they just created a separate SE site specific to Facebook development but it appears to just be a filter on all questions which have a tag that contains "facebook" while hiding all others.

More and more this is just a patch for the problem, while what they need is a 180 degree turn and commit to actual developers.

Facebook treats its developers just like its users and throws out updates, new features and changes very very often. With so many users they can afford it for their users, but they need to see they can't just do that for their developers. As a user there are so many little bugs and quirks in Facebook, especially in the News Feed, that popup and a few days later disappear. Facebook needs to realise they need developers too, and that many advertisers run campaigns on their facebook pages, meaning that the API is not just a fun addon for users, but a money maker too.

Post reply on HN