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So my question is, where to ask somewhat non-specific questions of high-powered users?

Chat perhaps? IRC? A private email list that you maintain and only invite high-powered users to?

Certainly not SO - you might get high-powered users to weigh in, but are just as (if not more) likely to get responses from new users, or bored users, or new, bored users...

You lament in a comment somewhere that you would have been fine asking a (community-wiki) form of this question in the past. But this is debatable; in the very early days of the site, traffic was low enough that [some] folks were [a bit] more tolerant of discussion/poll fare, and there was a period of time when the Community Wiki compromise let some such questions pass... But neither of these were devoid of controversy - indeed, it's far more probable that your question would simply have been repeatedly closed, re-opened, closed, re-opened... Until one or both sides ran out of steam (or a moderator intervened).

And you'd still get the C# kids answering in amazement that anyone could function without a debugger.

So my answer is, nowhere on SE.

See also: Where can I find interesting programming discussions?

So my question is, where to ask somewhat non-specific questions of high-powered users?

Chat perhaps? IRC? A private email list that you maintain and only invite high-powered users to?

Certainly not SO - you might get high-powered users to weigh in, but are just as (if not more) likely to get responses from new users, or bored users, or new, bored users...

You lament in a comment somewhere that you would have been fine asking a (community-wiki) form of this question in the past. But this is debatable; in the very early days of the site, traffic was low enough that [some] folks were [a bit] more tolerant of discussion/poll fare, and there was a period of time when the Community Wiki compromise let some such questions pass... But neither of these were devoid of controversy - indeed, it's far more probable that your question would simply have been repeatedly closed, re-opened, closed, re-opened... Until one or both sides ran out of steam (or a moderator intervened).

And you'd still get the C# kids answering in amazement that anyone could function without a debugger.

So my answer is, nowhere on SE.

See also: Where can I find interesting programming discussions?

So my question is, where to ask somewhat non-specific questions of high-powered users?

Chat perhaps? IRC? A private email list that you maintain and only invite high-powered users to?

Certainly not SO - you might get high-powered users to weigh in, but are just as (if not more) likely to get responses from new users, or bored users, or new, bored users...

You lament in a comment somewhere that you would have been fine asking a (community-wiki) form of this question in the past. But this is debatable; in the very early days of the site, traffic was low enough that [some] folks were [a bit] more tolerant of discussion/poll fare, and there was a period of time when the Community Wiki compromise let some such questions pass... But neither of these were devoid of controversy - indeed, it's far more probable that your question would simply have been repeatedly closed, re-opened, closed, re-opened... Until one or both sides ran out of steam (or a moderator intervened).

And you'd still get the C# kids answering in amazement that anyone could function without a debugger.

So my answer is, nowhere on SE.

###See also: Where can I find interesting programming discussions?

So my question is, where to ask somewhat non-specific questions of high-powered users?

Chat perhaps? IRC? A private email list that you maintain and only invite high-powered users to?

Certainly not SO - you might get high-powered users to weigh in, but are just as (if not more) likely to get responses from new users, or bored users, or new, bored users...

You lament in a comment somewhere that you would have been fine asking a (community-wiki) form of this question in the past. But this is debatable; in the very early days of the site, traffic was low enough that [some] folks were [a bit] more tolerant of discussion/poll fare, and there was a period of time when the Community Wiki compromise let some such questions pass... But neither of these were devoid of controversy - indeed, it's far more probable that your question would simply have been repeatedly closed, re-opened, closed, re-opened... Until one or both sides ran out of steam (or a moderator intervened).

And you'd still get the C# kids answering in amazement that anyone could function without a debugger.

So my answer is, nowhere on SE.

See also: Where can I find interesting programming discussions?

So my question is, where to ask somewhat non-specific questions of high-powered users?

Chat perhaps? IRC? A private email list that you maintain and only invite high-powered users to?

Certainly not SO - you might get high-powered users to weigh in, but are just as (if not more) likely to get responses from new users, or bored users, or new, bored users...

You lament in a comment somewhere that you would have been fine asking a (community-wiki) form of this question in the past. But this is debatable; in the very early days of the site, traffic was low enough that [some] folks were [a bit] more tolerant of discussion/poll fare, and there was a period of time when the Community Wiki compromise let some such questions pass... But neither of these were devoid of controversy - indeed, it's far more probable that your question would simply have been repeatedly closed, re-opened, closed, re-opened... Until one or both sides ran out of steam (or a moderator intervened).

And you'd still get the C# kids answering in amazement that anyone could function without a debugger.

So my answer is, nowhere on SE.

###See also: Where can I find interesting programming discussions?

So my question is, where to ask somewhat non-specific questions of high-powered users?

Chat perhaps? IRC? A private email list that you maintain and only invite high-powered users to?

Certainly not SO - you might get high-powered users to weigh in, but are just as (if not more) likely to get responses from new users, or bored users, or new, bored users...

You lament in a comment somewhere that you would have been fine asking a (community-wiki) form of this question in the past. But this is debatable; in the very early days of the site, traffic was low enough that [some] folks were [a bit] more tolerant of discussion/poll fare, and there was a period of time when the Community Wiki compromise let some such questions pass... But neither of these were devoid of controversy - indeed, it's far more probable that your question would simply have been repeatedly closed, re-opened, closed, re-opened... Until one or both sides ran out of steam (or a moderator intervened).

And you'd still get the C# kids answering in amazement that anyone could function without a debugger.

So my answer is, nowhere on SE.

###See also: Where can I find interesting programming discussions?