Chris Holmes Online

Every now and then I remember to check my blog for trackbacks, postbacks, etc. Today I found this article from .NET Geek titled Blogs vs. CodeProject. I thought it was quite fortunate to run across that particular post since myself and a coworker were just bitching about the CodeProject the other day.

I’ve got to the point where, when I Google something, I skip references to two sites in particular: Experts Exchange and CodeProject.

Experts Exchange pisses me off because they blur all of their answers; they want you to pay so you can discuss software problems and solutions with other “experts”. I find the thought of paying to converse with my fellow software developers so revolting that I want to vomit every time Google links to one of these pages. Experts Exchange is the antithesis of something like ALT.NET.

CodeProject is better because it’s free. But it also has some serious problems…

The first problem is that the vast majority of the contributions to the CodeProject are written in such a way that the author wants you to download their code and use it. This is not an ideal solution. Instead of explaining the principles of a solution that the author is proposing and giving you enough code examples to write your own solution, they force you to download the code they’ve written. The most frequent suggested solution on the CodeProject is to, “download my library and use it.”

Well, I don’t want to download you’re code, CodeProject dude. Half the time (or more) your code is so poorly written and/or designed that I wouldn’t put it in a production environment if you bribed me with hot E3 booth babes. If I end up wanting to use anything off the CodeProject I have to completely re-write the code to make it acceptable, often fixing bugs and errors along the way. It would be a lot easier if the people who author solutions on the CodeProject would just write out the solution in their article, and then point to a reference implementation that you could download if you want to.

Now, someone is going to argue that the code on CodeProject is just that – reference implementations. But the point I’m trying to make here is that I shouldn’t have to download the code in order to understand the solution they are presenting. The concept behind the solution is what should be important, not the author’s library of cryptically written spaghetti code. Folks on the CodeProject spend way too much time writing libraries for people to download, and not enough time explaining how to properly solve a problem.

So, when Kim asks the following question about hit counts on CodeProject articles vs. blog posts:

Or maybe numbers isn’t everything???

I’m inclined to say: I agree. Counts aren’t everything. Ideas are.

CodeProject has one advantage over a blog: it’s bigger, so it’s going to receive more traffic. Unless you’re Ayende or someone else with a fairly sizable audience, then posting your solutions on the CodeProject is a good idea. You’ll reach a wider audience and help more people that way. And from reading Kim’s blog that appears to be what he/she is all about: helping others. And that’s a good thing.

So I don’t want to seem like I’m coming down hard on CodeProject. I love the idea, I just wish more authors would focus on the idea they’re trying to share instead of the assembly they’re compiling.