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I'm going to go against the grain here: I don't like it. It's one thing for SO to be a user-to-user forum so that fellow developers can help solve problems, but I don't think it's really appropriate for reporting bugs and making feature requests for technology vendors (whether open source contributors or companies) to reply to.

It's hard to pin down exactly why I feel that way, but I think it's to do with the relationship between the users. On SO, the moderators are those who have proved themselves worthy in a general community sense. On a technology-specific forum, I'd expect the moderators to be associated with that technology. They should be able to close a feature request as "declined" (with a reason) or mark a bug as fixed, There's a level of power, responsibility and knowledge which has nothing to do with what the users are like in the more general terms of SO.

I think it's fine for SO to be one of the encouraged ways that users help to solve each other's problems, but I wouldn't want it to be the primary support forum for a technology.

EDIT: Something I should have said before: I would view this as a good use of StackExchange - if a technology vendor (or whatever) wants to host a specific site for their technology, that would be great. I just don't really want to see feature requests and bugs for every API in the world on SO. (I'm fine with "I think this might be a bug, but I'm not sure - what do you think?" type questions though.)

EDIT: I've just been speaking with Kevin Bourrillion of the Google Java Collections and Guava projects. He's recently announced that Stack Overflow should be used as one of the support mechanisms. From his mailing list post:

Where-to-post summary:

• How do I? -- StackOverflow!
• I got this error, why? -- StackOverflow!
• I got this error and I'm sure it's a bug -- file an issue!
• I have an idea/request -- file an issue!
• Why do you? -- the mailing list!
• When will you? -- the mailing list!
• You suck and I hate you -- contact us privately at [email protected]!
• You're awesome -- aw shucks!

That sounds like exactly the right balance to me. Topics requiring "deep" knowledge and discussion are likely to be best on a specialist list - whereas questions which "dabblers" can answer easily would do well on SO.

I will be fascinated to see the degree to which this becomes a standard practice - and whether it will be different for commercial products vs open source.

I've spoken with Kevin Bourrillion of the Google Java Collections and Guava projects. He's recently announced that Stack Overflow should be used as one of the support mechanisms. From his mailing list post:

Where-to-post summary:

• How do I? -- StackOverflow!
• I got this error, why? -- StackOverflow!
• I got this error and I'm sure it's a bug -- file an issue!
• I have an idea/request -- file an issue!
• Why do you? -- the mailing list!
• When will you? -- the mailing list!
• You suck and I hate you -- contact us privately at [email protected]!
• You're awesome -- aw shucks!

That sounds like exactly the right balance to me. Topics requiring "deep" knowledge and discussion are likely to be best on a specialist list - whereas questions which "dabblers" can answer easily would do well on SO.

It's one thing for SO to be a user-to-user forum so that fellow developers can help solve problems, but I don't think it's really appropriate for reporting bugs and making feature requests for technology vendors (whether open source contributors or companies) to reply to.

I think it's fine for SO to be one of the encouraged ways that users help to solve each other's problems, but I wouldn't want it to be the primary support forum for a technology (insofar as reporting bugs, defects, feature requests, etc.).

I'm going to go against the grain here: I don't like it. It's one thing for SO to be a user-to-user forum so that fellow developers can help solve problems, but I don't think it's really appropriate for reporting bugs and making feature requests for technology vendors (whether open source contributors or companies) to reply to.

It's hard to pin down exactly why I feel that way, but I think it's to do with the relationship between the users. On SO, the moderators are those who have proved themselves worthy in a general community sense. On a technology-specific forum, I'd expect the moderators to be associated with that technology. They should be able to close a feature request as "declined" (with a reason) or mark a bug as fixed, There's a level of power, responsibility and knowledge which has nothing to do with what the users are like in the more general terms of SO.

I think it's fine for SO to be one of the encouraged ways that users help to solve each other's problems, but I wouldn't want it to be the primary support forum for a technology.

EDIT: Something I should have said before: I would view this as a good use of StackExchange - if a technology vendor (or whatever) wants to host a specific site for their technology, that would be great. I just don't really want to see feature requests and bugs for every API in the world on SO. (I'm fine with "I think this might be a bug, but I'm not sure - what do you think?" type questions though.)

EDIT: I've just been speaking with Kevin Bourrillion of the Google Java Collections and Guava projects. He's recently announced that Stack Overflow should be used as one of the support mechanisms. From his mailing list post:

Where-to-post summary:

• How do I? -- StackOverflow!
• I got this error, why? -- StackOverflow!
• I got this error and I'm sure it's a bug -- file an issue!
• I have an idea/request -- file an issue!
• Why do you? -- the mailing list!
• When will you? -- the mailing list!
• You suck and I hate you -- contact us privately at [...]!
• You're awesome -- aw shucks!

That sounds like exactly the right balance to me. Topics requiring "deep" knowledge and discussion are likely to be best on a specialist list - whereas questions which "dabblers" can answer easily would do well on SO.

I will be fascinated to see the degree to which this becomes a standard practice - and whether it will be different for commercial products vs open source.

I'm going to go against the grain here: I don't like it. It's one thing for SO to be a user-to-user forum so that fellow developers can help solve problems, but I don't think it's really appropriate for reporting bugs and making feature requests for technology vendors (whether open source contributors or companies) to reply to.

It's hard to pin down exactly why I feel that way, but I think it's to do with the relationship between the users. On SO, the moderators are those who have proved themselves worthy in a general community sense. On a technology-specific forum, I'd expect the moderators to be associated with that technology. They should be able to close a feature request as "declined" (with a reason) or mark a bug as fixed, There's a level of power, responsibility and knowledge which has nothing to do with what the users are like in the more general terms of SO.

I think it's fine for SO to be one of the encouraged ways that users help to solve each other's problems, but I wouldn't want it to be the primary support forum for a technology.

EDIT: Something I should have said before: I would view this as a good use of StackExchange - if a technology vendor (or whatever) wants to host a specific site for their technology, that would be great. I just don't really want to see feature requests and bugs for every API in the world on SO. (I'm fine with "I think this might be a bug, but I'm not sure - what do you think?" type questions though.)

EDIT: I've just been speaking with Kevin Bourrillion of the Google Java Collections and Guava projects. He's recently announced that Stack Overflow should be used as one of the support mechanisms. From his mailing list post:

Where-to-post summary:

• How do I? -- StackOverflow!
• I got this error, why? -- StackOverflow!
• I got this error and I'm sure it's a bug -- file an issue!
• I have an idea/request -- file an issue!
• Why do you? -- the mailing list!
• When will you? -- the mailing list!
• You suck and I hate you -- contact us privately at me@glennbeck.com!
• You're awesome -- aw shucks!

That sounds like exactly the right balance to me. Topics requiring "deep" knowledge and discussion are likely to be best on a specialist list - whereas questions which "dabblers" can answer easily would do well on SO.

I will be fascinated to see the degree to which this becomes a standard practice - and whether it will be different for commercial products vs open source.

I'm going to go against the grain here: I don't like it. It's one thing for SO to be a user-to-user forum so that fellow developers can help solve problems, but I don't think it's really appropriate for reporting bugs and making feature requests for technology vendors (whether open source contributors or companies) to reply to.

It's hard to pin down exactly why I feel that way, but I think it's to do with the relationship between the users. On SO, the moderators are those who have proved themselves worthy in a general community sense. On a technology-specific forum, I'd expect the moderators to be associated with that technology. They should be able to close a feature request as "declined" (with a reason) or mark a bug as fixed, etc. There's a level of power, responsibility and knowledge which has nothing to do with what the users are like in the more general terms of SO.

I think it's fine for SO to be one of the encouraged ways that users help to solve each other's problems, but I wouldn't want it to be the primary support forum for a technology.

EDIT: Something I should have said before: I would view this as a good use of StackExchange - if a technology vendor (or whatever) wants to host a specific site for their technology, that would be great. I just don't really want to see feature requests and bugs for every API in the world on SO. (I'm fine with "I think this might be a bug, but I'm not sure - what do you think?" type questions though.)

I'm going to go against the grain here: I don't like it. It's one thing for SO to be a user-to-user forum so that fellow developers can help solve problems, but I don't think it's really appropriate for reporting bugs and making feature requests for technology vendors (whether open source contributors or companies) to reply to.

It's hard to pin down exactly why I feel that way, but I think it's to do with the relationship between the users. On SO, the moderators are those who have proved themselves worthy in a general community sense. On a technology-specific forum, I'd expect the moderators to be associated with that technology. They should be able to close a feature request as "declined" (with a reason) or mark a bug as fixed, There's a level of power, responsibility and knowledge which has nothing to do with what the users are like in the more general terms of SO.

I think it's fine for SO to be one of the encouraged ways that users help to solve each other's problems, but I wouldn't want it to be the primary support forum for a technology.

EDIT: Something I should have said before: I would view this as a good use of StackExchange - if a technology vendor (or whatever) wants to host a specific site for their technology, that would be great. I just don't really want to see feature requests and bugs for every API in the world on SO. (I'm fine with "I think this might be a bug, but I'm not sure - what do you think?" type questions though.)

EDIT: I've just been speaking with Kevin Bourrillion of the Google Java Collections and Guava projects. He's recently announced that Stack Overflow should be used as one of the support mechanisms. From his mailing list post:

Where-to-post summary:

• How do I? -- StackOverflow!
• I got this error, why? -- StackOverflow!
• I got this error and I'm sure it's a bug -- file an issue!
• I have an idea/request -- file an issue!
• Why do you? -- the mailing list!
• When will you? -- the mailing list!
• You suck and I hate you -- contact us privately at [...]!
• You're awesome -- aw shucks!

That sounds like exactly the right balance to me. Topics requiring "deep" knowledge and discussion are likely to be best on a specialist list - whereas questions which "dabblers" can answer easily would do well on SO.

I will be fascinated to see the degree to which this becomes a standard practice - and whether it will be different for commercial products vs open source.