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I wonder about this question: Should we avoid language features that C++ has but Java doesn't?

It stuck in hot list for 4-5 days, got about 14K views, 16 answers, over 100 upvotes (plus few hundreds more upvotes were cast on answers). That's quite expected in cases like this.

Strange things happened after it dropped off the list, it was like immediately forgotten and ignored. In a month that passed since it has got only 4 votes and about 300 views.

(You can check votes in the question timeline. As for views, I started checking these after I got curious about how fast it has lost popularity - Feb 7: 14,435 views, Feb 14: 14,569, Feb 21: 14,663, Feb 28: 14,736.)

I know that usefulness isn't the goal of hot questions but it's hard to believe that 14K views and few hundreds upvotes went to content that isn't even interesting.

I also used this query (hat tip to Yannis) to learn about anonymous feedback and it doesn't look impressive: votes on top answer were +29/-5, on question +12/-20, other answers got less than 10.

At 14K views this means only one of 400-500 visitors bothered to click the voting arrows. Granted, this seems to be typical, I used same query to compare against two other recent questions with similar score and views and numbers look pretty similar (post ids 307467 and 307292).

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  • as one of close voters I thought it is a routine opinion / discussion. However 20+ downvotes to the question suggest that I may miss something, hot list visitors are rarely that negative about discussions. Some comments blamed it of trolling, this could probably be related
    – gnat
    Feb 28 '16 at 8:59
  • The post has masses of upvotes, and has clearly been useful to people. If you think it's off-topic, no matter because it's been closed as off-topic. What problem are you trying to solve here?
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Feb 28 '16 at 13:45
  • @PreferenceBean votes aren't a reliable measure of usefulness, especially in hot questions. Based on votes alone one may argue that it's useless since only 4 votes were cast in a month after it has left hot list. I am trying to figure if content in there is useful (or interesting)
    – gnat
    Feb 28 '16 at 13:58
  • Looks useful and interesting to me. Is there a problem?
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Feb 28 '16 at 14:00
  • @PreferenceBean from what I observed it looks like people quickly lost interest in it despite initial heavy promotion. As if it is useless and boring. That made me wonder if it really is
    – gnat
    Feb 28 '16 at 14:29
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    @g​​​​​​​​​​​​​nat: How many questions are you aware of that retain high daily activity over a sustained period of time? And, again, what is the problem that you are trying to solve? Seems to me you're looking for a problem here, not a solution.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Feb 28 '16 at 14:34
  • @PreferenceBean only month has passed, this hardly qualifies as sustained period. Heck, it stopped getting any votes at all a week after it was posted, I didn't expect that of a question with 14K views! Yeah this is probably what made me curious, I thought 14K views indicate solid and reliable popularity, how come that it has dropped that fast
    – gnat
    Feb 28 '16 at 15:06
  • @gnat: It might be that people stopped voting one it became clear to them that the question is based on a false premise.
    – Bart van Ingen Schenau
    Feb 29 '16 at 16:58
  • @BartvanIngenSchenau I could understand that, but why would they stop voting on answers, and why views dropped that much
    – gnat
    Feb 29 '16 at 18:47
  • This question now has 4 reopen votes and 2 delete votes. This question is going places! Where, exactly, I do not know, but it is going there!
    – user22815
    Feb 29 '16 at 23:00
  • @Snowman that's meta effect
    – gnat
    Mar 1 '16 at 7:39
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The terribly flawed premise of the question is something that I've heard numerous times (in one form or another) from newer developers. The content may not be interesting to a seasoned developer, but I think it's a valuable thread for noobs.

If nothing else, it's a quick & accessible reference next time an overeager noob proposes excessive future-proofing by even more excessive over-engineering.

PS. Telastyn's answer is also t-shirt worthy:

Solve your actual problem today, not the ghost of some future problem

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  • as a moderator, can you please check anonymous feedback on this question? 10K tools didn't show it to me. As for using it as reference for (dupe-closing?) inappropriate questions, worth noting that this approach is... controversial, folks complain about this (I personally am rather on your side here but it doesn't seem to be popular)
    – gnat
    Feb 28 '16 at 13:54
  • @gnat When it comes to anonymous feedback, I'm afraid the 10K tools is as good as it gets. It may be possible to dig up a bit more info through SEDE, but I'm not sure. Also, I never said anything about dupe closing. I'm very strongly against dupe closing anything that isn't an exact dupe.
    – yannis
    Feb 28 '16 at 19:12
  • understood, thank you!
    – gnat
    Feb 28 '16 at 19:12
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    @gnat This query might help: data.stackexchange.com/programmers/query/95383/…
    – yannis
    Feb 28 '16 at 19:16
  • that query is just what I need, thanks. I'll update question with my findings
    – gnat
    Feb 28 '16 at 19:49
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    I agree with @Yannis on this one: this is useful information for junior developers who might be tempted to do what is mentioned in the question. As such, I believe we should keep it around.
    – user22815
    Feb 29 '16 at 23:01

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