Timeline for Is the Unix C API still on-topic?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 8, 2014 at 1:22 | comment | added | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | @derobert The audience of this site is users and aministrators of Unix-like systems, not programmers. If you're seeing the system interfaces from a user's or administrator's perspective, it's on-topic. If you're seeing it from a programmer's perspective, as in the question that prompted your meta question, it's off-topic. | |
| Apr 22, 2014 at 7:19 | comment | added | strugee | true... hmmm... | |
| Apr 22, 2014 at 7:08 | comment | added | derobert | ... especially since you can't actually use (directly) the C API from bash or other scripting languages. | |
| Apr 22, 2014 at 7:06 | comment | added | derobert | I think you'll want to propose new wording for the help center, as currently it says the "UNIX C API and System Interfaces" is on-topic. As it seems really hard to say that its not OK to ask about how to call it in C, when you're calling it the C API. | |
| Apr 22, 2014 at 7:03 | comment | added | strugee | @derobert no, your first example would be off topic because its a programming question in a mask. your second example would be borderline. an example of a question that would definitely be on topic is "why does glibc wrap mount()?" | |
| Apr 22, 2014 at 6:59 | comment | added | strugee | @Braiam exactly. the question was fundamentally about writing C code. | |
| Apr 22, 2014 at 6:59 | comment | added | derobert | Then "What do I pass to mount(2) to mount /sys?" would be on-topic? That seems like language-lawyering, not a sane way to define the scope of our site. Would "What's the Linux system interface to mount a file system?" be on topic? | |
| Apr 22, 2014 at 6:58 | comment | added | Braiam | The "How do I write a C program that will implement the above line." may weighed in the decision. | |
| Apr 22, 2014 at 6:56 | history | answered | strugee | CC BY-SA 3.0 |