Our approach to subjective programming questions

Gotta say, at first glance I really like this approach..

Here are a few things that are going on in the back of my mind.

> I'd love to see a time based filter. For example, consider the evolution of JavaScript libraries. For simplicity's sake, let's take the shift from prototype to jQuery. What you guys are creating could effectively answer this question: 'When did jQuery surpass Prototype as being the premier library, and why?' The filter would have to be periodic (since votes are going to be spread out), but I would find it fascinating to glean the shifts in developer technologies. Think Backbone, ember, angular, etc..

> I see a lot of ULs in place of what seem to be 'features'. While this may only be relevant for things that are capable of being compared (apples-to-apples so to speak), I imagine significant value will be come out of a resulting table of comparison; that is, if each bullet point could somehow be categorized, tagged or curated in some way. This may be hard to achieve (and may not be relevant in some cases), but you could effectively build out a report highlighting things that _are_ and _are not_ available (instead of having contributors write long lists that then users have to parse and reconcile). Does that make sense?

> In the blog post you state "we aren’t actually trying to tell you what the best programming language to learn first is" -- I appreciate that you don't want to suggest the 'best', but I imagine that's how most developers (particularly newcomers) are going to interpret the results. I'm curious if such a forum would influence new developers for the better or worse.

> Sign in with Facebook? What about stack exchange/github? I don't know what you guys think about leveraging reputation, but it would be nice to bring my existing recognition - score and tags (albeit slim) - along with me. Even integrating LinkedIn could be interesting with skills. Just a thought.

Awesome feedback.

1: That is a really cool idea and something I have been thinking about since day 1. I want to be able to show a graph that displays the relative change in opinion over time, annotated with the addition of new citations to the Viewpoints. So when someone updates the Ember Viewpoint with new information and the citation for it, you can do some basic "cause analysis" on what changed,when and why :)

2: Absolutely makes sense. We are still debating the best way to do this, but one simple solution is an editable comparison matrix that shows the simple features/specs that the Viewpoints have. The ULs would then be used to further flesh out the more significant points that can't be explained in matrix format (for eg how nice the UI is for a particular app)

3: Again, we debate this point all the time. What do you think about the phrasing "What are the different programming languages suitable to learn first?" or something along those lines?

4: Awesome idea, we are going to add additional login options soon, but the idea of bringing in external rep is very interesting!

I think this is awesome, especially since I asked about this exact thing just hours ago before you posted.[0] I'm really excited and I can't wait to see you take off!

[0]http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5286601

Please please please don't pull a quora and force people to have to register to see the vote counts.

> I found the site slow to load (actually got the wait or cancel dialog).

Sorry about that, we are under some heavy load and didn't have time to do even the most basic speed optimisations (gzip etc). Its very high priority.

> The presentation of information is too "detail-heavy" (i) the list of questions includes 3 alternatives and even some lines about each. The typical user wants to scan the topics to find one of interest. (though I guess having a some context is good, since that's what SO does; but only to clarify the question, not the answer).

Totally agreed. I know how to fix this, will be done soon.

> (ii) in the actual answer, there's no summary of the results; no comparison of the alternatives; and no indication of what context each tool best suits ("job" for the tool); instead, each page is all about one alternative. I would guess that something like a grid might work better, with the tools listed vertically, and the attributes horizontally (with the "job"/context first). The user can then scroll down to examine each point in detail (or maybe drill-down, with expanding sections, for truly secondary/tertiary content, like comments/debates). Attributes could be voted on.

We have this page: http://slant.co/topics/what-s-the-best-jabber-gchat-client-f... that shows ALL the options and an overview of what they are suitable for. To further improve this we are working on a comparison matrix style feature that is approximately what you described here.

Would it be possible for you to email me? (stuart@slant.co) I'd love to be able to show you some 'in the works' features as they are being built for some feedback.