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I came across a question where a comprehensive example would be very useful. So I wrote an example program showing one way to solve their problem.

My problem is that when I was done creating it, and testing to make sure it worked, it was over 400 lines in 18 files. My example included source code, header files, and scripts for building the example in a variety of circumstances.

It's a working and tested, so it's of huge value to illustrate the tricky solution, but because it's all there, my response was huge! Is there a better way of posting my code dump?

I guess there isn't a current "best way" to include a large chunk of code, so I made this a feature request and tried to add some ideas.

Perhaps code entries that are longer then a certain number of lines, or ones that have been specifically marked could initially be displayed as "collapsed", and someone could expand them if they want to see them?

Or maybe, like attaching images, users with enough reputation could attach an archive of files. They could be displayed as "attached code" (initially collapsed also).

Some problems have simple answers that unfortunately touch disproportionately large parts of the program, or can be solved in slightly different ways depending on the environment. I feel that Stack Overflow needs a way of capturing these large solutions. Sometimes, they're large chunks of code. In my case, the code was small, but there were many files.

Using GitHub or a similar code repository is great, but we risk linkrot (even for big guys like GitHub) and loose the community editing, commenting, and voting abilities.

I understand the problems that could come from with people dumping whole "I can't get this to work" packages, but surely we already have a solution for that in moderation.

I'm starting to see that this may have been already addressed in posts like

If you feel this a dupe, I'm open to having it "closed as already addressed"

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4 Answers 4

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5

At the end, you wrote a complete application that has some complexity (due to the large amount of files), but it's easy to build. I don't see any reason why you shouldn't share it on a Github or Google Code (or somewhere else).

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  • 1
    On the surface, I would say because external links are subject to breaking over time. Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 1:00
  • Maybe, but that is rarely the case with places like github and google code. Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 1:04
  • I was thinking of that, but I felt having it safe from linkrot, and here where the community could enhance it was more important Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 13:41
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    I think this is the solution for answers at least - you write a textual synopsis, i.e. what the important/functional bits of it are and why you solved it like that. Possibly include some snippets or diagrams as appropriate. The synopsis should make sense as a free-standing answer, but it can quite sensibly link to github etc. Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 14:38
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    I find this one humorous now that Google Code is closing. Commented Sep 17, 2015 at 18:18
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    @patricksweeney: This answer/comment thread should be linked to whenever someone tries to argue "but github would never go down, why can't I leave my buggy code there and just link from my question?". No one is safe! Commented Sep 17, 2015 at 19:12
  • Does the recent problems we've seen on such sites mean that we should stop sharing code with others? Commented Sep 17, 2015 at 19:58
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I sympathize with your situation, as I've also wished for something like this too. But I know it's bad candy.

I feel that answers like this should be the exception, not the rule. Answers should be comprehensive, but I don't feel there is often a need for a solution that incurs more than a standard post can accept. After all, we're here to assist, but we're not consultants.

So I think it's good on the surface, but when you drill down to what it really entails, it's likely to encourage the kind of answers we don't typically want.

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How about posting it as a Gist? That way, we can easily browse it, download it as a .zip archive or clone it as a Git repository, which is much easier than having to manually copy-paste everything from SO. Of course, there is some danger of link rot by having it on an external site. I would really like it if SO was better integrated with some such service, similar to how it works with images on imgur.

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400 lines isn't that much. You get up to 30,000 characters per answer, and code blocks truncate to 25 lines. For example, this answer contains a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 1000 without using a loop or conditional. It's quite a few lines, but it's fine to include in an answer. 

int main(void) { printf("1\n"); printf("2\n"); printf("3\n"); printf("4\n"); printf("5\n"); printf("6\n"); printf("7\n"); printf("8\n"); printf("9\n"); printf("10\n"); printf("11\n"); printf("12\n"); printf("13\n"); printf("14\n"); printf("15\n"); printf("16\n"); printf("17\n"); printf("18\n"); printf("19\n"); printf("20\n"); printf("21\n"); printf("22\n"); printf("23\n"); printf("24\n"); printf("25\n"); printf("26\n"); printf("27\n"); printf("28\n"); printf("29\n"); printf("30\n"); printf("31\n"); printf("32\n"); printf("33\n"); printf("34\n"); printf("35\n"); printf("36\n"); printf("37\n"); printf("38\n"); printf("39\n"); printf("40\n"); printf("41\n"); printf("42\n"); printf("43\n"); printf("44\n"); printf("45\n"); printf("46\n"); printf("47\n"); printf("48\n"); printf("49\n"); printf("50\n"); printf("51\n"); printf("52\n"); printf("53\n"); printf("54\n"); printf("55\n"); printf("56\n"); printf("57\n"); printf("58\n"); printf("59\n"); printf("60\n"); printf("61\n"); printf("62\n"); printf("63\n"); printf("64\n"); printf("65\n"); printf("66\n"); printf("67\n"); printf("68\n"); printf("69\n"); printf("70\n"); printf("71\n"); printf("72\n"); printf("73\n"); printf("74\n"); printf("75\n"); printf("76\n"); printf("77\n"); printf("78\n"); printf("79\n"); printf("80\n"); printf("81\n"); printf("82\n"); printf("83\n"); printf("84\n"); printf("85\n"); printf("86\n"); printf("87\n"); printf("88\n"); printf("89\n"); printf("90\n"); printf("91\n"); printf("92\n"); printf("93\n"); printf("94\n"); printf("95\n"); printf("96\n"); printf("97\n"); printf("98\n"); printf("99\n"); printf("100\n"); printf("101\n"); printf("102\n"); printf("103\n"); printf("104\n"); printf("105\n"); printf("106\n"); printf("107\n"); printf("108\n"); printf("109\n"); printf("110\n"); printf("111\n"); printf("112\n"); printf("113\n"); printf("114\n"); printf("115\n"); printf("116\n"); printf("117\n"); printf("118\n"); printf("119\n"); printf("120\n"); printf("121\n"); printf("122\n"); printf("123\n"); printf("124\n"); printf("125\n"); printf("126\n"); printf("127\n"); printf("128\n"); printf("129\n"); printf("130\n"); printf("131\n"); printf("132\n"); printf("133\n"); printf("134\n"); printf("135\n"); printf("136\n"); printf("137\n"); printf("138\n"); printf("139\n"); printf("140\n"); printf("141\n"); printf("142\n"); printf("143\n"); printf("144\n"); printf("145\n"); printf("146\n"); printf("147\n"); printf("148\n"); printf("149\n"); printf("150\n"); printf("151\n"); printf("152\n"); printf("153\n"); printf("154\n"); printf("155\n"); printf("156\n"); printf("157\n"); printf("158\n"); printf("159\n"); printf("160\n"); printf("161\n"); printf("162\n"); printf("163\n"); printf("164\n"); printf("165\n"); printf("166\n"); printf("167\n"); printf("168\n"); printf("169\n"); printf("170\n"); printf("171\n"); printf("172\n"); printf("173\n"); printf("174\n"); printf("175\n"); printf("176\n"); printf("177\n"); printf("178\n"); printf("179\n"); printf("180\n"); printf("181\n"); printf("182\n"); printf("183\n"); printf("184\n"); printf("185\n"); printf("186\n"); printf("187\n"); printf("188\n"); printf("189\n"); printf("190\n"); printf("191\n"); printf("192\n"); printf("193\n"); printf("194\n"); printf("195\n"); printf("196\n"); printf("197\n"); printf("198\n"); printf("199\n"); printf("200\n"); printf("201\n"); printf("202\n"); printf("203\n"); printf("204\n"); printf("205\n"); printf("206\n"); printf("207\n"); printf("208\n"); printf("209\n"); printf("210\n"); printf("211\n"); printf("212\n"); printf("213\n"); printf("214\n"); printf("215\n"); printf("216\n"); printf("217\n"); printf("218\n"); printf("219\n"); printf("220\n"); printf("221\n"); printf("222\n"); printf("223\n"); printf("224\n"); printf("225\n"); printf("226\n"); printf("227\n"); printf("228\n"); printf("229\n"); printf("230\n"); printf("231\n"); printf("232\n"); printf("233\n"); printf("234\n"); printf("235\n"); printf("236\n"); printf("237\n"); printf("238\n"); printf("239\n"); printf("240\n"); printf("241\n"); printf("242\n"); printf("243\n"); printf("244\n"); printf("245\n"); printf("246\n"); printf("247\n"); printf("248\n"); printf("249\n"); printf("250\n"); printf("251\n"); printf("252\n"); printf("253\n"); printf("254\n"); printf("255\n"); printf("256\n"); printf("257\n"); printf("258\n"); printf("259\n"); printf("260\n"); printf("261\n"); printf("262\n"); printf("263\n"); printf("264\n"); printf("265\n"); printf("266\n"); printf("267\n"); printf("268\n"); printf("269\n"); printf("270\n"); printf("271\n"); printf("272\n"); printf("273\n"); printf("274\n"); printf("275\n"); printf("276\n"); printf("277\n"); printf("278\n"); printf("279\n"); printf("280\n"); printf("281\n"); printf("282\n"); printf("283\n"); printf("284\n"); printf("285\n"); printf("286\n"); printf("287\n"); printf("288\n"); printf("289\n"); printf("290\n"); printf("291\n"); printf("292\n"); printf("293\n"); printf("294\n"); printf("295\n"); printf("296\n"); printf("297\n"); printf("298\n"); printf("299\n"); printf("300\n"); printf("301\n"); printf("302\n"); printf("303\n"); printf("304\n"); printf("305\n"); printf("306\n"); printf("307\n"); printf("308\n"); printf("309\n"); printf("310\n"); printf("311\n"); printf("312\n"); printf("313\n"); printf("314\n"); printf("315\n"); printf("316\n"); printf("317\n"); printf("318\n"); printf("319\n"); printf("320\n"); printf("321\n"); printf("322\n"); printf("323\n"); printf("324\n"); printf("325\n"); printf("326\n"); printf("327\n"); printf("328\n"); printf("329\n"); printf("330\n"); printf("331\n"); printf("332\n"); printf("333\n"); printf("334\n"); printf("335\n"); printf("336\n"); printf("337\n"); printf("338\n"); printf("339\n"); printf("340\n"); printf("341\n"); printf("342\n"); printf("343\n"); printf("344\n"); printf("345\n"); printf("346\n"); printf("347\n"); printf("348\n"); printf("349\n"); printf("350\n"); printf("351\n"); printf("352\n"); printf("353\n"); printf("354\n"); printf("355\n"); printf("356\n"); printf("357\n"); printf("358\n"); printf("359\n"); printf("360\n"); printf("361\n"); printf("362\n"); printf("363\n"); printf("364\n"); printf("365\n"); printf("366\n"); printf("367\n"); printf("368\n"); printf("369\n"); printf("370\n"); printf("371\n"); printf("372\n"); printf("373\n"); printf("374\n"); printf("375\n"); printf("376\n"); printf("377\n"); printf("378\n"); printf("379\n"); printf("380\n"); printf("381\n"); printf("382\n"); printf("383\n"); printf("384\n"); printf("385\n"); printf("386\n"); printf("387\n"); printf("388\n"); printf("389\n"); printf("390\n"); printf("391\n"); printf("392\n"); printf("393\n"); printf("394\n"); printf("395\n"); printf("396\n"); printf("397\n"); printf("398\n"); printf("399\n"); printf("400\n"); printf("401\n"); printf("402\n"); printf("403\n"); printf("404\n"); printf("405\n"); printf("406\n"); printf("407\n"); printf("408\n"); printf("409\n"); printf("410\n"); printf("411\n"); printf("412\n"); printf("413\n"); printf("414\n"); printf("415\n"); printf("416\n"); printf("417\n"); printf("418\n"); printf("419\n"); printf("420\n"); printf("421\n"); printf("422\n"); printf("423\n"); printf("424\n"); printf("425\n"); printf("426\n"); printf("427\n"); printf("428\n"); printf("429\n"); printf("430\n"); printf("431\n"); printf("432\n"); printf("433\n"); printf("434\n"); printf("435\n"); printf("436\n"); printf("437\n"); printf("438\n"); printf("439\n"); printf("440\n"); printf("441\n"); printf("442\n"); printf("443\n"); printf("444\n"); printf("445\n"); printf("446\n"); printf("447\n"); printf("448\n"); printf("449\n"); printf("450\n"); printf("451\n"); printf("452\n"); printf("453\n"); printf("454\n"); printf("455\n"); printf("456\n"); printf("457\n"); printf("458\n"); printf("459\n"); printf("460\n"); printf("461\n"); printf("462\n"); printf("463\n"); printf("464\n"); printf("465\n"); printf("466\n"); printf("467\n"); printf("468\n"); printf("469\n"); printf("470\n"); printf("471\n"); printf("472\n"); printf("473\n"); printf("474\n"); printf("475\n"); printf("476\n"); printf("477\n"); printf("478\n"); printf("479\n"); printf("480\n"); printf("481\n"); printf("482\n"); printf("483\n"); printf("484\n"); printf("485\n"); printf("486\n"); printf("487\n"); printf("488\n"); printf("489\n"); printf("490\n"); printf("491\n"); printf("492\n"); printf("493\n"); printf("494\n"); printf("495\n"); printf("496\n"); printf("497\n"); printf("498\n"); printf("499\n"); printf("500\n"); printf("501\n"); printf("502\n"); printf("503\n"); printf("504\n"); printf("505\n"); printf("506\n"); printf("507\n"); printf("508\n"); printf("509\n"); printf("510\n"); printf("511\n"); printf("512\n"); printf("513\n"); printf("514\n"); printf("515\n"); printf("516\n"); printf("517\n"); printf("518\n"); printf("519\n"); printf("520\n"); printf("521\n"); printf("522\n"); printf("523\n"); printf("524\n"); printf("525\n"); printf("526\n"); printf("527\n"); printf("528\n"); printf("529\n"); printf("530\n"); printf("531\n"); printf("532\n"); printf("533\n"); printf("534\n"); printf("535\n"); printf("536\n"); printf("537\n"); printf("538\n"); printf("539\n"); printf("540\n"); printf("541\n"); printf("542\n"); printf("543\n"); printf("544\n"); printf("545\n"); printf("546\n"); printf("547\n"); printf("548\n"); printf("549\n"); printf("550\n"); printf("551\n"); printf("552\n"); printf("553\n"); printf("554\n"); printf("555\n"); printf("556\n"); printf("557\n"); printf("558\n"); printf("559\n"); printf("560\n"); printf("561\n"); printf("562\n"); printf("563\n"); printf("564\n"); printf("565\n"); printf("566\n"); printf("567\n"); printf("568\n"); printf("569\n"); printf("570\n"); printf("571\n"); printf("572\n"); printf("573\n"); printf("574\n"); printf("575\n"); printf("576\n"); printf("577\n"); printf("578\n"); printf("579\n"); printf("580\n"); printf("581\n"); printf("582\n"); printf("583\n"); printf("584\n"); printf("585\n"); printf("586\n"); printf("587\n"); printf("588\n"); printf("589\n"); printf("590\n"); printf("591\n"); printf("592\n"); printf("593\n"); printf("594\n"); printf("595\n"); printf("596\n"); printf("597\n"); printf("598\n"); printf("599\n"); printf("600\n"); printf("601\n"); printf("602\n"); printf("603\n"); printf("604\n"); printf("605\n"); printf("606\n"); printf("607\n"); printf("608\n"); printf("609\n"); printf("610\n"); printf("611\n"); printf("612\n"); printf("613\n"); printf("614\n"); printf("615\n"); printf("616\n"); printf("617\n"); printf("618\n"); printf("619\n"); printf("620\n"); printf("621\n"); printf("622\n"); printf("623\n"); printf("624\n"); printf("625\n"); printf("626\n"); printf("627\n"); printf("628\n"); printf("629\n"); printf("630\n"); printf("631\n"); printf("632\n"); printf("633\n"); printf("634\n"); printf("635\n"); printf("636\n"); printf("637\n"); printf("638\n"); printf("639\n"); printf("640\n"); printf("641\n"); printf("642\n"); printf("643\n"); printf("644\n"); printf("645\n"); printf("646\n"); printf("647\n"); printf("648\n"); printf("649\n"); printf("650\n"); printf("651\n"); printf("652\n"); printf("653\n"); printf("654\n"); printf("655\n"); printf("656\n"); printf("657\n"); printf("658\n"); printf("659\n"); printf("660\n"); printf("661\n"); printf("662\n"); printf("663\n"); printf("664\n"); printf("665\n"); printf("666\n"); printf("667\n"); printf("668\n"); printf("669\n"); printf("670\n"); printf("671\n"); printf("672\n"); printf("673\n"); printf("674\n"); printf("675\n"); printf("676\n"); printf("677\n"); printf("678\n"); printf("679\n"); printf("680\n"); printf("681\n"); printf("682\n"); printf("683\n"); printf("684\n"); printf("685\n"); printf("686\n"); printf("687\n"); printf("688\n"); printf("689\n"); printf("690\n"); printf("691\n"); printf("692\n"); printf("693\n"); printf("694\n"); printf("695\n"); printf("696\n"); printf("697\n"); printf("698\n"); printf("699\n"); printf("700\n"); printf("701\n"); printf("702\n"); printf("703\n"); printf("704\n"); printf("705\n"); printf("706\n"); printf("707\n"); printf("708\n"); printf("709\n"); printf("710\n"); printf("711\n"); printf("712\n"); printf("713\n"); printf("714\n"); printf("715\n"); printf("716\n"); printf("717\n"); printf("718\n"); printf("719\n"); printf("720\n"); printf("721\n"); printf("722\n"); printf("723\n"); printf("724\n"); printf("725\n"); printf("726\n"); printf("727\n"); printf("728\n"); printf("729\n"); printf("730\n"); printf("731\n"); printf("732\n"); printf("733\n"); printf("734\n"); printf("735\n"); printf("736\n"); printf("737\n"); printf("738\n"); printf("739\n"); printf("740\n"); printf("741\n"); printf("742\n"); printf("743\n"); printf("744\n"); printf("745\n"); printf("746\n"); printf("747\n"); printf("748\n"); printf("749\n"); printf("750\n"); printf("751\n"); printf("752\n"); printf("753\n"); printf("754\n"); printf("755\n"); printf("756\n"); printf("757\n"); printf("758\n"); printf("759\n"); printf("760\n"); printf("761\n"); printf("762\n"); printf("763\n"); printf("764\n"); printf("765\n"); printf("766\n"); printf("767\n"); printf("768\n"); printf("769\n"); printf("770\n"); printf("771\n"); printf("772\n"); printf("773\n"); printf("774\n"); printf("775\n"); printf("776\n"); printf("777\n"); printf("778\n"); printf("779\n"); printf("780\n"); printf("781\n"); printf("782\n"); printf("783\n"); printf("784\n"); printf("785\n"); printf("786\n"); printf("787\n"); printf("788\n"); printf("789\n"); printf("790\n"); printf("791\n"); printf("792\n"); printf("793\n"); printf("794\n"); printf("795\n"); printf("796\n"); printf("797\n"); printf("798\n"); printf("799\n"); printf("800\n"); printf("801\n"); printf("802\n"); printf("803\n"); printf("804\n"); printf("805\n"); printf("806\n"); printf("807\n"); printf("808\n"); printf("809\n"); printf("810\n"); printf("811\n"); printf("812\n"); printf("813\n"); printf("814\n"); printf("815\n"); printf("816\n"); printf("817\n"); printf("818\n"); printf("819\n"); printf("820\n"); printf("821\n"); printf("822\n"); printf("823\n"); printf("824\n"); printf("825\n"); printf("826\n"); printf("827\n"); printf("828\n"); printf("829\n"); printf("830\n"); printf("831\n"); printf("832\n"); printf("833\n"); printf("834\n"); printf("835\n"); printf("836\n"); printf("837\n"); printf("838\n"); printf("839\n"); printf("840\n"); printf("841\n"); printf("842\n"); printf("843\n"); printf("844\n"); printf("845\n"); printf("846\n"); printf("847\n"); printf("848\n"); printf("849\n"); printf("850\n"); printf("851\n"); printf("852\n"); printf("853\n"); printf("854\n"); printf("855\n"); printf("856\n"); printf("857\n"); printf("858\n"); printf("859\n"); printf("860\n"); printf("861\n"); printf("862\n"); printf("863\n"); printf("864\n"); printf("865\n"); printf("866\n"); printf("867\n"); printf("868\n"); printf("869\n"); printf("870\n"); printf("871\n"); printf("872\n"); printf("873\n"); printf("874\n"); printf("875\n"); printf("876\n"); printf("877\n"); printf("878\n"); printf("879\n"); printf("880\n"); printf("881\n"); printf("882\n"); printf("883\n"); printf("884\n"); printf("885\n"); printf("886\n"); printf("887\n"); printf("888\n"); printf("889\n"); printf("890\n"); printf("891\n"); printf("892\n"); printf("893\n"); printf("894\n"); printf("895\n"); printf("896\n"); printf("897\n"); printf("898\n"); printf("899\n"); printf("900\n"); printf("901\n"); printf("902\n"); printf("903\n"); printf("904\n"); printf("905\n"); printf("906\n"); printf("907\n"); printf("908\n"); printf("909\n"); printf("910\n"); printf("911\n"); printf("912\n"); printf("913\n"); printf("914\n"); printf("915\n"); printf("916\n"); printf("917\n"); printf("918\n"); printf("919\n"); printf("920\n"); printf("921\n"); printf("922\n"); printf("923\n"); printf("924\n"); printf("925\n"); printf("926\n"); printf("927\n"); printf("928\n"); printf("929\n"); printf("930\n"); printf("931\n"); printf("932\n"); printf("933\n"); printf("934\n"); printf("935\n"); printf("936\n"); printf("937\n"); printf("938\n"); printf("939\n"); printf("940\n"); printf("941\n"); printf("942\n"); printf("943\n"); printf("944\n"); printf("945\n"); printf("946\n"); printf("947\n"); printf("948\n"); printf("949\n"); printf("950\n"); printf("951\n"); printf("952\n"); printf("953\n"); printf("954\n"); printf("955\n"); printf("956\n"); printf("957\n"); printf("958\n"); printf("959\n"); printf("960\n"); printf("961\n"); printf("962\n"); printf("963\n"); printf("964\n"); printf("965\n"); printf("966\n"); printf("967\n"); printf("968\n"); printf("969\n"); printf("970\n"); printf("971\n"); printf("972\n"); printf("973\n"); printf("974\n"); printf("975\n"); printf("976\n"); printf("977\n"); printf("978\n"); printf("979\n"); printf("980\n"); printf("981\n"); printf("982\n"); printf("983\n"); printf("984\n"); printf("985\n"); printf("986\n"); printf("987\n"); printf("988\n"); printf("989\n"); printf("990\n"); printf("991\n"); printf("992\n"); printf("993\n"); printf("994\n"); printf("995\n"); printf("996\n"); printf("997\n"); printf("998\n"); printf("999\n"); return 1000; }

See? Not so bad. The whole answer fits on my screen.

Of course, you should be careful to call out important elements outside of the full code-dump. For example, if you scroll to the bottom of the above block, you'll find:

return 1000;

Something like this probably deserves explanation; real programs will probably contain more of these.

Also, you noted that you have some 18 files. That's...interesting; I'm not sure what language you're programming in but I'd be unlikely to have 18 files for 400 lines to solve a single problem. Perhaps separate code blocks are merited, perhaps not. Consider condensing to a single file if applicable.

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    The 18 files were source, header, and build scripts. Individually they were small, but together they illustrate dynamic linking of shared variables and how to build the main program and library. The problem was that you couldn't just give the answer "use __declspec(dllexport)". If the reader didn't know what link options to use or how to resolve the circular dependency, that answer wouldn't be useful. I also covered mingw and msvc compilers (which are subtlety different) and different combinations of loadtime and runtime loading. The demonstration turned out to be a lot of files. Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 14:54
  • Derp, that should have been obvious from the linked post. I don't think that one is onerous. There are answers between the 400 lines and 18 files size (which fits in an answer) and a viable, lively application with its own site (that is less vulnerable to link rot) that would benefit from dedicated answer hosting, but I suspect that most answers like this can live just fine in an answer. Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 15:10

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