As I understand the FAQs this is a perfectly reasonable question and yet people are still voting to close it which I'm guessing means it only has a short period of time left before it gets closed by a moderator. Is it a duplicate? If so then I'd love to see the answers but as of yet my searching hasn't turned up anything close to this. Any information would be greatly appreciated. I find it rather disconcerting how difficult it has become to ask questions on here. It seems like everyone is very trigger happy when it comes to closing questions.
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6It it a single, run-on paragraph. Start by breaking it up. Also, you end up asking another unrelated question at the end. It is difficult to see the actual question there and certainly not what you have tried and why it didn't work.– OdedJun 1, 2013 at 19:07
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3You also say in the comments that it is a specific question - it isn't. You are essentially asking for troubleshooting but not providing any pertinent information.– OdedJun 1, 2013 at 19:09
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I haven't tried anything because there doesn't seem to be much information to go on regarding how to actually solve the problem. Therefore there's nothing to trouble shoot yet. I'm looking to find out what industry standards are out there to solve this particular problem. The question at the end is hardly unrelated. I will remove it however if its throwing people off.– KennethJun 1, 2013 at 19:19
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2@Kenneth - try to understand what people are telling you. Broad "I need to know where to start in order to learn this" questions are off topic here. Simple as that.– Adam RackisJun 2, 2013 at 4:05
2 Answers
I'll illustrate how the question was probably closed. Just read your own post:
However, I don't know if there are more efficient ways and I'm getting hung up on figuring out how the authentication would be handled
It's a help-me-with-design request. Those are off-topic on StackOverflow.
How can an Android Application and Web Interface be setup to share the same data?
This is very open-ended questions. You could pick a random protocol and give it as an answer; it was assumed that you did no research before asking.
I'm assuming the web interface needs to be the dominant data store with some sort of interface (i.e. RESTful or SOAP)
Hmm you have actually answered your question? So what is a question then? So, it's not a real question.
The question is (as declared in the title)
Just don't do that. Titles are not for asking complete questions, but to summary them. The question itself should be clearly stated in question body. Many people are automatically closing the questions with no question mark in body or with reference to the title.
The problem is the lack of precision. You want to choose a protocol for you? It's off-topic or not constructive. You want to know how to handle authentication? Why haven't you ask about it then?
You could make from it a more clear and precise question, for example about performance problems/comparison using SOAP/JSON/raw XML services etc. But actually it's hard to say what is the core problem.
It's a single, run-on paragraph. Break it up. Watch how I try to in this post, and apply it in future questions.
It's not a specific question - it's a bunch of questions lumped together. That doesn't really fly here - you'll need to ask specific, pointed questions.
This is the question many people leave with:
is a RESTful or SOAP interface the best communication mechanism?
Us 3k'ers jump on 'is A better than B' type of questions - closing them as not constructive.
If you improve it, ping me and I will be glad to vote for reopening.