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Is http://programmers.stackexchange.com the right website to ask the following question:

What language was New tab page Speed Dial 2 created with?

What language do they use to save the settings, to save the links, etc? They obviously started it using HTML and CSS, but what is after that? What language do they use to save all the settings?

If it's not the right place, then what is?

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    This is a question that only the creators/maintainers of a specific product can authoritatively answer. Therefore, the only good place to ask it is wherever those creators/maintainers want to receive questions--be it a support forum, a github repo, a twitter account or whatever. If they have no such place, that's a black mark on their product.
    – Ixrec
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 19:20
  • Your right. But I guess what I want to know, is what language is that achievable with?
    – Jessica
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 19:21
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    The answer to that question is almost always "any language". Whether it's feasible or even practical in a given language is a very complicated decision that depends heavily on the individual coder and the specific requirements of the project, almost more so than on the language itself or its implementations. There's a reason many real-world projects use several different languages, protocols and other technologies. Any answer you'd get would either be a random unjustified opinion, or if it was properly justified it'd be hundreds of pages long.
    – Ixrec
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 19:24
  • Thanks! So your're saying, I can use JavaScript to create the same thing?
    – Jessica
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 19:27
  • The "new tab page" itself could be just another web page, with all the possible implementations that implies. But in that particular case I think it's meant to integrate with Google Chrome somehow, so what implementations are possible boils down to what Chrome supports, and that would be considered off-topic as a support question for Google.
    – Ixrec
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 19:34
  • I'm not asking how they integrated with chrome. I'm asking about the actual settings, and links. What language would I be able to create that with? Like you said. If I want to create a website like that, how would I go about it?
    – Jessica
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 19:37
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    That's essentially asking "how do I make a web page?", which is way too broad to answer in a comment or answer here. You're better off googling for the many tutorials and books about web development already out there.
    – Ixrec
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 19:39
  • I know how to create a web page. ( I know how to create the basics, HTML, CSS) However, I don't know how that particular one was made. How they saved the user settings. How they saved the user links.
    – Jessica
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 19:40
  • Local storage? The cloud? A database on their servers? There are loads of ways of saving information in a web app.
    – Ixrec
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 19:42

1 Answer 1

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Programmers is all about answering conceptual questions about software development. Questions about implementation are off-topic here: while implementation may play a role in a question or an answer, they cannot be solely about implementation.

Asking "in what language was this product implemented" falls squarely into the off-topic category of implementation. (Note: it may be about implementation, but it is also off-topic at Stack Overflow)

Furthermore, a question should elicit reasonably long answers that describe various aspects of a topic and go in-depth. Depending on the project, I might able to answer "in what language is X implemented?" with "C++" or "Perl" or some other one-word answer. That is fundamentally not a good question or answer because there is nothing to describe.

Finally, from How do I ask a good question?

Make it relevant to others

We like to help as many people at a time as we can. Make it clear how your question is relevant to more people than just you, and more of us will be interested in your question and willing to look into it.

A good question will generalize a problem just enough so it is still useful to the asker, but other people can stumble on the question from Google or searching on-site and get value from it. This is one of the points of asking a question using a Short, Self Contained, Correct (Compilable), Example (or the conceptual/design equivalent to be on-topic here). Distill your question down to its core so it can be useful to others, among other benefits.

Asking a question such as the one you posited is not really interesting to most people and it will not be relevant to others. Additionally, as you found out in the comments, you are more likely to get an answer from someone involved in the project anyway.

Why are you asking this question?

Questions like the one you brought up are normally a means to an end. You see some cool feature and are curious how to implement it yourself, or how to design your software to do something similar. While most popular programming languages are somewhat equivalent from a computer science theory perspective (i.e. Turing-complete), the reality is each has its own ecosystem of libraries and language features that might make certain software easier to implement. Asking what language to use sounds like a decent first step.

You would be better off asking yourself what is my end goal? Why do I care what language was used? That should lead you to another question which may be on-topic here. Now you start getting into design questions which are interesting, are relevant to other people, and do attract high-quality answers. Of course, one must ask a good question that is not too broad (a very real risk with design questions), but now we are getting somewhere productive.

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