OSDev.org

It seems to me that tutorials and other things would be much better off if it was possible to do things like embedding live code in the forum and the Wiki.

It looks like these dynamic platforms are dynamic only in the sense that they index and show dynamically new content from a database.

But if they cannot embed live code to do things on it like color its syntax according to its programming language, show the lines and characters, etc., so that it can be discussed and so that any changes to the real code of a real project are immediately reflected in forum and Wiki posts, then we have:

- Dynamic templating for the website.
- Static content for the actual important stuff (code, text, images....).


Wouldn't it be possible to discuss in terms of real live code that could be updated without updating the Wiki or the forum's posts to make things more focused to what has been done so far in any topic?

What platform could allow to discuss live code at the same time that it gets developed and updated?
Chats, Question and Answer sites, Forums, Wikis, raw repositories (Git, SVN), don't allow discussing similarly than in a forum at the same time that we embed live code, and archiving progresses.

Is there something like that? It would be better to get things done and update them intrinsically, even if such site resource is outside of OSDev.org.

It is possible to provide a link from a wiki page to a site, which supports "live code" technology (your site?). So, you can show an example (appropriate for the page, of course) and may be somebody will report it's usefulness.

embryo2 wrote:It is possible to provide a link from a wiki page to a site, which supports "live code" technology (your site?). So, you can show an example (appropriate for the page, of course) and may be somebody will report it's usefulness.

It's about not fooling ourselves by believing that we have a dynamic website when in reality it's mostly static user content and static embeds, with dynamic PHP CSS templating and paged topic/content showcasing which automatically adjusts a number of the most recent topics per page, from the newest one.

It seems that implementing local and remote embeds of dynamic/updatable actual user-generated content would help a lot specially for a task where a exaggerate amount of details are to be kept in the immediate memory recall context. OS development is always such major case. It seems that things would advance better only by being able to embed live code (of course it would be limited to showing plain text, images and other remotely updatable content that will not execute in a web page for example, and at the very most a stream of the live updates to any embedded text, image or resource).

The question is, does something like it exist for any websites, and if not why, or why not implement it? It's not possible to make good questions that deal with massive implementations of actual code to debug and improve without that, and it's really not complicated to implement, and would add a dramatical amount of practicality.

It would be a very appropriate thing for open source repositories to have discussions containing the current code and reload buttons with and without syntax highlight and optional streaming showing exact changes at the very moment that the embedded live code is being seen.

Something tells me that it would add a lot of dynamism and things would really become more focused in solving real implementations more effectively for all questions and discussions.

Things would get more real and definitive and we would have debugging of the real code instead of serving isolated code snippets that will certainly get outdated immediately as people answer and the developer tries options, so answering would be the easiest.

It would also update embedded code immediately without the need to intervene in updating forum posts, wiki pages or remote web pages, to show the final solutions of the referenced code, so everything would be much more practical. Many pages could reference the same live code obviously.

Wikis are not places to dump embeds.

The OSDev wiki is a website for reference. Not a sandbox. It is fine as it is.

Kazinsal wrote:Wikis are not places to dump embeds.

The OSDev wiki is a website for reference. Not a sandbox. It is fine as it is.

That's the problem.

The goal is to show discussions that always reflect the right answers and the right code.

Wikis, forums, Question and Answer (Q&A) sites, blogs and the rest of common websites are dynamic templates with static user-generated content that will get fully static once it stops being a trending topic.

They are more to document snapshots of static things that will never change. They can get more details for information but they are still the same fact.

But to allow for more effective discussions oriented to develop projects and promote good discussions with interesting stuff to do, it would be better to know about a platform that works based on live resources/code, and virtually not using inline code which wouldn't be of interest to show the actual routines of the program as they would get outdated immediately.

But for code, while it may have a development history, it should also be better archived as a particular version and keep discussion updated for the latest version besides the archived snapshots with discussion of each final version. For code in development we also need a mix between live repositories and a platform to keep, review and update comments and discussions coherently no matter how much the embedded live code changes.

In other words, it doesn't consolidate additions to any projects or references that discuss real world code until solving it and leaving a reference that will keep updating over time.

It looks like referencing code from different repositories (Git, SVN, private web sites) in an embed as plain text with and without syntax highlighting and discussing it as it gets developed would be an absolute minimum.

It would effectively align updated comments and discussion with real updated code to be compiled.


Without being able to embed live resources we are only left with resources without connection to anything real. They are just like random examples but would never be able to develop real code in a single effective pass.

So what to do?


SVN and Git on the other hand lack discussion.

JSPerf or websites to test any sort of code aren't really what I'm talking about.

I'm referring to embed systematically

SVN and Git on the other hand lack discussion.

Did you ignore Github and it's kind on purpose?

So what to do?

Post links to your website, or some other, hosting the live code. People will use it if they think it useful, ignore it if they don't.

~ wrote:The question is, does something like it exist for any websites, and if not why, or why not implement it? It's not possible to make good questions that deal with massive implementations of actual code to debug and improve without that, and it's really not complicated to implement, and would add a dramatical amount of practicality.

Something like this is something like youtube. The idea of dynamic content is not new, but the problem with the mix of the dynamics and discussions is the discussion's nature. It goes away from dynamic part and focuses on different things for some time, but at some point it can return to the original subject and redefine it in a new way. And the dynamic part is already far behind and isn't useful for the discussion. But those who read the discussion from the beginning could see changed dynamic part and wonder what it is about, because the dynamic content now reflects the new state of the discussion.

Generally it's about information representation. Information has many dimensions and fixing one dimension (the discussion) while keeping the other free to change can lead to a mess instead of something useful. But I'm not going to advice you to stop your experiments, because may be there are some areas where static content can benefit from refreshed dynamic part. At least I want to say it's not very easy to find such areas.

However, I can imagine something like a window that follows the discussion (it isn't bound to a point in the discussion) and everybody can update it according to the current state of the discussion. The window should be easily accessible and also it should be easily dismissible for it not to obscure the content. And even more - every participant can have his personal window which reflects his personal summary of the discussion and helps in understanding the general line of the discussion. Code coloring and other highlighting means could be as useful as they already are for the forum software (e.g. bold, italic, etc). But of course such design should be extensively tested.