Suppose I'm reading through some open source project and I encounter a block of code that I just don't understand, despite going to documentation websites and utilizing Google search to piece it together. Could I post that block of code here and ask for help from the P. SE community?
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4Thank you for asking here in meta regarding your potential questions before asking them on main. Sorry that both of your examples are off-topic for Programmers, but thanks for checking first.– user53019Oct 23, 2015 at 20:54
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2 Answers
Code questions may belong on one of several sites
- Broken or incomplete code belongs on Stack Overflow
- Working code that you want feedback on belongs on Code Review
- Code does not belong on Programmers unless it is supporting your question: while this is a conceptual site, it is about programming after all. But a question dealing only with a block of code would be closed as off-topic. Think of it like this: if your question is a thesis paper, code is like references. They help, but a thesis full of only references is no good.
That being said, "help me understand this code" is generally off-topic everywhere. Sometimes those question will slide by on Stack Overflow, but only if there is a suspected bug or other code malfunction (i.e. does not work as expected). I would search Stack Overflow's meta site and maybe ask on their meta first to be safe.
No, code snippet explanations are off-topic for the site.
I'm relatively certain StackOverflow doesn't accept those questions either, but I would search and check on meta.stackoverflow first.