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The Programmers.SE FAQ no longer has a mention of Code Golf, as Code Golf is now back to being the domain of Stack Overflow while the Code Golf Area 51 proposal gets off the ground.

Reference: Jeff Atwood on Have Code Golf questions been implicitly disallowed on StackOverflow, now that migration to PSE is possible?

Now that Community Wiki is dead (long live Community Wiki!), I understand that there is some concern that code golf questions would be nothing more than rep farms on Stack Overflow.

The basis for that sentiment is that they really don't help anyone, so why should anyone get rep for the question or answers? Since the main way to kill rep, Community Wiki, is dead, code golf questions are now A Bad Thing for Stack Overflow.

I get that reasoning. But now, the Programmers.SE FAQ has the following:


This can include topics such as:

  • Software engineering
  • Developer testing
  • Developer tools and techniques
  • Practical algorithms and data structures
  • Design patterns
  • Architecture
  • Development methodologies
  • Quality assurance
  • Software law
  • Code golf & programming puzzles
  • Freelancing and business concerns

Programmers.SE has had a serious problem since its inception because people have considered it to be a dumping ground for questions not good enough to be on the "real" sites. This doesn't help, at all.

Consider also two of the Good Subjective, Bad Subjective question guidelines (for which Programmers.SE has an explicit close reason):



What is the rationale behind this decision?

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If code golf were moved to P.SE, I think that would be my only reason for going there. ;) –  gnostradamus Oct 15 '10 at 17:14
@gno: You are a code golfer? Since when? –  Aarobot Oct 15 '10 at 18:28
@Aarobot: Since day 15. ;) –  gnostradamus Oct 15 '10 at 18:49
@gno: Well, I just heard a loud pop that sounded like it came from inside my head. Excuse me whiles I investigizzlefloopleburhurdurrrzzzz4 –  Aarobot Oct 15 '10 at 18:56
Related question on Prog.SE/Meta: meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/38/… –  Peter Boughton Oct 23 '10 at 17:59
FYI: Code Golf has just entered commitment phase. –  KennyTM Oct 23 '10 at 18:08

3 Answers 3

up vote 20 down vote accepted

Having Code Golf questions on Prog.SE confuses what the site is about (people and techniques, not code).

Whether or not codegolf questions belong on StackOverflow is a debate for people that want to discuss that, but the outcome of that is irrelevant to Prog.SE, which is not designed to be nor desired as a dumping ground for SO rejects.

If actual code is involved, it very likely doesn't belong on Prog.SE.

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I'm not really sure that it makes sense to try to apply the subjective question guidelines here, since Code Golf questions are... not subjective. They may attract many answers, but there is always going to be one single best answer: the one with the shortest code that still produces the correct results.

Honestly, based on the kinds of questions I seem to be seeing getting the most attention on Programmers.SE, Code Golf questions would be a net positive.

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There is some subjectivity that arises during code-golfing in the form of how people vote. People will often vote more for what is unique or funny (i.e. Brainf*ck solutions) or for what they are familiar with, so popular languages often garner more votes regardless of code length. –  gnostradamus Oct 15 '10 at 18:39
@gnos: there is always some subjectivity when people vote, and I don't see why that would make the question more appropriate to programmers –  Andreas Bonini Oct 15 '10 at 18:41
@Kop: While you are correct about all voting containing some amount of subjectivity, I think that this subjectivity is amplified substantially for questions that pit language vs. language. –  gnostradamus Oct 15 '10 at 18:45
@gno: There is always subjectivity on how people vote. Even on perfectly vanilla questions, some people just vote for the highest number (rep or score). What makes a question objective vs. subjective is the ability to choose a correct or best answer based on objective criteria. Code Golf meets that. It just (perhaps) doesn't belong on Stack Overflow because those questions are contrived, not real problems that need solving. –  Aarobot Oct 15 '10 at 18:51


Wordiness is not a substitute for quality. I can (and have...) stretch a one-liner into a page-long, verbose, patronizing, analogy-clogged, repetitious screed... That doesn't make it a better answer.

The goal for Code Golf answers is to be as short as possible, and no shorter. This is not a bad goal for any answer. If the question itself is so trivial as to inspire trivially short answers, then so be it - but this is hardly a requirement for Code Golf!

Great subjective questions are more than just mindless social fun.

Social and fun likely do apply here, but "mindless"? I hardly think so.

I'm not a big fan of Code Golf questions. While on occasion I do like solving puzzles SO provides plenty of real-world puzzles to solve - and adding "game"-type questions seems like a distraction from this goal. That said, I don't have a problem with them staying on SO, provided they're rare and follow strict guidelines. As great as some challenges can be, there's always the temptation for knock-offs to ride their coattails without putting the time and effort into producing something good - we had a bit of a compromise (use CW or be closed) to reduce the temptation, but since that's fallen through P.SE seems like a decent choice: the "close based on question quality" strategy seems to be the intended path forward for that site anyway, so at least there's a clear rationale for getting rid of the lazy / poorly thought-out ones.

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> This is not a bad goal for any answer. - Maybe you should lead by example, would you? –  Ladybug Killer Oct 15 '10 at 19:46
@Lady: Kinda late to start, eh? –  Shogging through the snow Oct 15 '10 at 19:49
@Shog: It's never too late to get rid of a bad habit. –  Ladybug Killer Oct 15 '10 at 20:03
@Lady: at this point though, there's too much history to provide a good example - I'd have an easier time just pretending it's intentional and calling it a "style". –  Shogging through the snow Oct 15 '10 at 20:07
@Shog: You can call it what you want, but it has nothing to do with "style". –  Ladybug Killer Oct 15 '10 at 20:21
@Lady: If laziness isn't a style, I don't want to be stylish. –  Shogging through the snow Oct 15 '10 at 20:24
@Shog: Sure. Laziness is the well of creativity. Just go on and do - nothing. That's what I call "being en vogue". –  Ladybug Killer Oct 15 '10 at 20:34

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