SO Community code reviews?

Question

I didn't see this in the official FAQ, and I'm rather new so I'm not sure of the community conventions.

I am a IT guy trying to learn programming on my own. I don't have access to someone else to look at code that I've written, so I am curious if it is acceptable to the SO community to post code for review?

For example, I'm working through SICP and the K&R book right now, and while I haven't run into any roadblocks yet, I'd like to ensure that I'm not learning bad practices in my little bubble here.

So, what is the community opinion, yes or no?

Answer 1

It depends whether the community can learn something from your example. For example, if you post something very domain-specific, the answers might not be useful to many people. General-purpose reviews are typically conducted within organizations (mainly due to IPR reasons).

Answer 2

As far as I can see, questions that sound like "What's wrong with the following code?" or "Am I doing it right?", where you provide some 10-20 lines of code and a short explanation of your issue, are generally well accepted, no matter how deep the question turns out to be.

Answer 3

I don't think it will be apreciated if you post a huge amount of code for review. But once in a while, a single function won't be a real problem I think.

Answer 4

I agree with Gamecat that I don't think it appropriate here unless you have a specific question about something wrong with a specific block of code or a question about optimization. However, it sounds like a good idea for a spin-off from SO. Code reviews are important so it seems to me that some form of "open-source" review (pun intended) would be useful.

Answer 5

You might try a newsgroup, such as comp.lang.c or similar. Be prepared to take replies with a grain of salt, but they're still good resources. Google groups is a good way to manage newsgroup subscriptions and threads.

Again, usenet can be a very strange place, so take replies in stride.

Answer 6

SO is a Q&A site. The idea is that answerer helps not only the asker, but many people what (will) have the same question. For this to work, the question has to be google-able.

So, if you can formulate your question in a way "I have trouble combining this and that feature", it is OK. Next guy who does not understand these features can find your question using those key words. "What the hell is wrong with my code?" is a bad question for the site. Nobody searches for "hell" or "wrong".