Do questions on WAMP belong on Stack Overflow, Server Fault or Super User?

Question

After reading this Meta Stack Overflow question, I think it might be useful to have a separate question for this subject.

Let me quote a part of Shog9's answer:

SU and SF are generally not great places for WAMP questions... Particularly when asked on SO, these nearly always involve someone working with their development or testing setup (rather than, say, a home or production server environment). If you see someone recommending SF or SU for such questions, politely correct them.

So the argument is that since WAMP is closely related to development, it belongs on Stack Overflow.

My concern is twofold:

• It being development is irrelevant, issues appearing while using WAMP can also appear in a production environment.
• There might be more expertise on the subject over at Server Fault.

Perhaps not many people will support my view, but it's worth asking so everybody knows how to handle such questions: what does the community think?

Answer 1

To put it bluntly, asking this on Server Fault would be a terrible idea - In my opinion (and that of many SF regulars) no professional would run a WAMP system in production, and it would be so out of scope it would be in the next state. I'm unfamiliar with Stack Overflow's norms but I do believe that, if it doesn't involve an issue with the code itself, it's off topic.

Super User might be the best place to ask for issues specific to WAMP - We've had questions to do with WAMP and Windows 8 not playing well together, for example. That said, be prepared for folks telling you how horrible an idea it is, and that you should be using a virtual machine running a similar platform to production - I know I would ;).

In short, if your code has issues, ask on SO. If the hosting platform in question is something you would use professionally, and you have properly hard problems with it consider SF. For dev-testish platforms that should never see the light of day in production, SU is the most likely place to ask, but only by default.

Answer 2

As Pekka noted, there are questions regarding WAMP that are so poorly-asked (lacking in detail, or simply hard to read) that there's no point in trying to pick a site - they're going to do poorly everywhere. Sometimes they can be edited and improved, often they are not. Let's ignore those - embarrassingly bad questions are always bad.

As Travis noted, there's some confusion about what WAMP even refers to. While it can refer to the concept of Apache+PHP on Windows (as both Wikipedia and Stack Overflow's own tag wiki suggest), in practice very few people use it this way when asking questions - it's more often used to refer to one or more prepackaged installations of the various software packages needed to develop PHP applications on Windows.

I think it's fairly obvious that well-asked questions about the development tool have done fairly well on Stack Overflow up to this point. Looking at the tiny handful of folks asking and answering such questions on Super User and Server Fault (and considering the often-hostile attitude such questions often receive on Server Fault) there's little doubt in my mind that these questions belong on SO... Provided they're being asked by folks using the package as a development tool.

If you're trying to install WAMP to run your home backup server, then Super User becomes more appropriate. And if you're unlucky enough to be supporting a production server running WAMP, then you'll probably have to brave Server Fault.

Answer 3

So here is my real world example and my take on this: I, as a developer, not a server admin, have recently been tasked with configuring and deploying a production WAMP system.

While I agree production WAMP is not the greatest of ideas, as a third party contractor, I just get paid to implement, not to disagree. And it falls on me mainly due to the fact that I am the third party contractor.

The server admin, while being able to set up and describe F5's passing through Meraki firewalls(to give another real life example), I do not believe has ever set up a WAMP server, and in fact, simply gave me admin access and said good luck, probably due to the fact that this request came from way above his pay grade as well.

Now, I will most definitely come across issues I do not immediately know the answer too and will search or ask questions, on google and on SO. Since I am an experienced developer(meaning that I know that I don't know) and end up on SO almost every day.

I know enough to try to pinpoint the cause and tag that, i.e, php problem, but I would also want to tag it as WAMP to give enough information to everyone so that when they are done telling me what a bad idea production WAMP is, hopefully someone, most likely another developer who has run into and solved this problem on a development server somewhere, can share the answer.

I believe that SO, rather than SF or SU, would give me the best chance of finding the answers to my question, mainly since WAMP tends to be a development environment set up by developers (in my experience, your mileage may vary).

Answer 4

It depends on what you are doing with the WAMP stack. The acronym kind of involves a lot of stuff.. Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. So if you are having trouble with any of that on your WAMP stack then you may be inclined to tag it as such.

It would seem that questions regarding how to set one up and fine tune it would be better suited to Server Fault - granted that they are well researched, unique, and can be reproduced or appeal to a broad audience.

Whereas it would probably be better received on Stack Overflow if you were trying to write some sort of code which specifically works with the WAMP stack. Perhaps there is some sort of context to one of the components being coded within the WAMP stack which would make including the WAMP tag relevant.

What it breaks down to mostly is: Configure - Server Fault. Code - Stack Overflow.

Server Fault WAMP tag information:

WAMP stands for Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP / Perl / Python. It refers to preconfigured packages that include those components. It is usually meant for development purposes only, not for production use. This is due to the insecure default settings, which are designed to get a developer up and running quickly. In production environments, it's usually preferable to install and configure each component separately.

Stack Overflow WAMP tag information:

WAMP refers to a style of web development utilizing Windows, Apache Web Server, MySQL database, and the PHP programming language.

Answer 5

I think the topic of this discussion is fundamentally flawed. "WAMP questions" seems to be a general category of questions that involve WAMP at some level, but this category is far to general to say that every question in it does or does not belong here.

Instead of trying to make such a general assessment, what you should do is continue to judge questions individually on a case-by-case basis as per the criteria for a good SO question. It does not matter if it involves WAMP or not, it only matters if it's a well-formed programming question.

Questions like the following would not belong here:

• I am having trouble installing WAMP on Windows, can you help?
• Do you like WAMP?
• Please write such-and-such program for me. I am using WAMP.

Questions like the following would belong here, IMO:

• I am using WAMP. I have wrote the following minimal test code and I am getting a MySQL authentication error. I have tried setting the following options, but the problem is not resolved. I am not sure if it is a configuration error, or a problem with my DB connection string. What is going on?
• I am trying to configure WAMP to include such-and-such PHP module. I am running into issue X. I've tried the following things, which I found via Google, and am still seeing this error. How can I configure this? (Specific, well-formed questions about programming tools do belong here.)
• I am having issues with some SQL query. I am expecting the results to be X but I am getting Y. I have tried Z. I am using WAMP. What is the problem? (In this case, the question isn't about WAMP, and the poster included it as an irrelevant detail.)

It really just has to be case-by-case.

If you spot questions where WAMP is irrelevant, that does not mean the question doesn't belong here. That simply means the poster believed WAMP was relevant. You may correct the poster in a comment, or in your answer, or edit their question if it is appropriate. If somebody asks a question and erroneously mentions WAMP, it could very well still be a good question with a useful answer, and there is no reason to discount it simply because WAMP was mentioned.

It is the same thing with any poorly tagged question, or any question where the poster mentions something irrelevant. It's no different than somebody saying "Why doesn't int x = "hi"; compile? I am using Java 1.7." -- that's not a case for a blanket ban on "Java 1.7" questions, it's a case for clearly explaining why it is irrelevant in the answer.

As for how to deal with it: There are many ways to get rid of a poor question. You could leave a comment to the poster explaining how to improve it. You could vote to close it. You could flag it for moderator attention. You could downvote it in the hope that if enough people agree with you it will prompt the poster to remove/improve it. Simply saying "WAMP [or whatever topic] questions aren't allowed" won't actually do anything; it won't stop the questions from being asked. At best, it will stop people from tagging them as "wamp", thus making them harder for us to identify.

In a meta sort of way, this very discussion has a similar quality - WAMP is, if you really stop and think, irrelevant. You list two concerns, and WAMP actually has nothing to do with those. The true concerns are in general: questions that mention irrelevant details, and questions about software configuration that are better for Server Fault. Specifically mentioning WAMP is, ironically, an irrelevant detail. Your concerns are appropriate for any topic.

Answer 6

IMHO it depends on what your actual problem is. For example your code is not working on wampserver, then it certainly relates to StackOverflow, since the main problem is with code and it can be solved only by those who KNOWS code.

If the problem is with the installation, it belongs to SU for sure. why? Because it's one kinda desktop application and people who knows the tweaks about installing any software may help you.(Although people on SO can help you either, if you've written the question with appropriate details).

If the problem is with installation and/or configuration on production environment at your workplace, where it's going to affect multiple machines, then it should belong to SF.(I am not sure about this, since I have never actually asked any question on SF), since people who knows about Servers can only help you.

The idea behind asking questions is to get them solved, and it can be solved only when asked at the proper place, where the experts are. Experts can solve it only when they actually know about it.

So in short the place depends on your actual problem.

Answer 7

IMHO questiong regarding WAMP are at least two different sets. One is about integrating WAMP with Windows, Apache, PHP and SQL of any kind together, these likely belong to ServerFault. Another is about resolving development issues in either part of WAMP/LAMP stack, these also split naturally into Apache-related problems, SQL, PHP, with two of the latter are perfectly fitting here at StackOverflow, and Apache-related problems can be either asked at SuperUser or ServerFault. I think it'll be better that WAMP questions should exist at at least both SU and SO, with tags say wamp-development meaning WAMP plus PHP/SQL issues, and wamp-operation meaning WAMP plus Windows/Apache issues, with preset bias about development belonging to SO, and operation to SU.

Answer 8

While I agree with a lot of the opinions posted here, I think there are WAMP questions that are appropriate for SO, SU and SF.

For SO, generally, I'd stick with questions that relate to code. Some maybe about configuration like: why is my php mail() function working in production but not in my WAMP setup. Its not code but closely relates to code. Also other developers could've run into the same issue.

For SU, I'd stick to questions that relate to how you'd usually use the WAMP stack at home/testing/dev/etc. Note the word, usually. For example, if I work in a small office with has a single server with WAMP and a normal(?) ISP connection. This is your production server but it closely resembles a typical home setup. So if I'm having trouble accessing it remotely, I'd ask the question in SU instead of SF since I'm bound to get more help there and our circumstances are more similar.

For SF, I'd stick to questions that relate to sysadmins, clusters and all that complicated magical stuff that I personally don't understand! So if for example, I need help setting up my home mysql cluster with 4 nodes or whatever. I maybe using it for development and doing it at home but its not something super users usually do. So even if its not a production setting, you'd probably want to ask this question on SF since you're more likely to get more help there.

My examples aren't the best, I know. But my point is, it depends on how your question and your circumstances relate to the users of the site. I don't see why WAMP questions should only be SF or SO questions. I'd say if you're bound to get more help on SF then go for it and vice versa.

Answer 9

SO accepts questions for (and provides tags for) application servers such as Weblogic and Glassfish.

If Weblogic and Glassfish are taken as development platforms, then, in my opinion, WAMP should not be treated any differently.

Answer 10

My best guess is: Stack Overflow would be the best choice.

We deal with programming and development on SO, and WAMP is almost exclusively related to development environments. Almost no one considers WAMP on production, right? So most problems and problem solutions are present somewhere in the SO community.

Answer 11

The problem is that PHP is one miserable failure to abstract anything useful about the underlying system(s), with the result that system configuration problems tend to leak into what seem like API-usage problems at first glance.

Therefore, there should be a separate SE community expressly for PHP developers. From there, anything which is not readily sorted by changing a config item in Apache, PHP, or MySQL (or by reading RFC 2616), could be directed to the relevant community.

This would cover WAMP, LAMP, and xN/AxP (letting Ngnix in on the act). The latter acronym is suggestive of the likely SE community name, since it onomatopoeic for 'nnng - exasperation!'.