1

This always happens to me as a neophyte programmer. I devise a way to handle some meta-feature of my code. I can write workable code, but if you stray out of algorithms and best practices, and ask for advice from CodeReview it's flagges as off-topic. I guess I'm falling foul of the the rule to exclude high-level questions:

Higher-level architecture and design of software systems We review code, not concepts, diagrams, or outlines. Whiteboard-style questions may be suitable on Software Engineering if they are specific.

I believe my code issue is specific, but I don't know what I don't know (and as I mentioned in the OP, I only recently learned about the Python best practice to put the module code in a sub-folder of setup.py). The code would run if you had the setup.py, and modules that did something, so there could be specific answers.

Is my question about structuring Python Click script redeemable for Software Engineering?

Python main + module structure to answer, What should module function return?

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

IMHO this question is on-topic for this site. However, it contains some unimportant stuff at the beginning (for example, these strange shortcuts), which only distract from the core question, and might have triggered the downvotes.

However, topicality is not the only criteria for a question. The last two sentences

Care to share a comment or critique of my ABS CLI structure? Maybe some tips where Python PEPs or best practices might apply?

show the question currently is not focussed enough for the Q&A format of this site. It would require a discussion, but the SE sites are no discussion sites.

So if you identify a specific problem in your design, and you don't know how to solve it, then you can ask here about it. Currently, it seems there is no real problem to solve, your design seems to work and serve your purpose, so there is not much we can do here for you.

And no, I don't know a better place where you can discuss software designs without any real issues, probably not in the SE network.

See also:

3
  • All good points. I guess I don't use the site enough, because I keep falling into this same pattern. Code Review trys to get around the discussion-prohibition by requiring the code is runnable. Which naturally excludes sharing architecture-like questions, because a pseudo-example, with a little bit of prodding, could be revealed as having logic errors, and then turns into a discussion. I thoughtlessly brought the question over here, because I was excited for critique. I'll take my toys and go home.
    – xtian
    Jun 10, 2020 at 13:25
  • @xtian: I added a link to an older meta question about the topicality of design review questions. I think the top answer (by our most active diamond moderator Thomas Owens, who really knows what's going on here), explains it well.
    – Doc Brown
    Jun 10, 2020 at 13:58
  • @Doc_Brown: I would sum up that post with Bart's comment--Thomas is interested in review questions and Bart is not (+6). Gnat's comments about moving the needle to on-topic, "achieving your quality requirements", "specific areas of concern .. performance.. testing.. scaling", are all serious topics. I'm a neophyte programmer, with simple code, asking for best practices, with some non-serious unimportant stuff fluffing up the post I thought would make it easier to read. It didn't work. I get it. I appreciate the quality of SE, even if its hard to participate sometimes.
    – xtian
    Jun 10, 2020 at 22:40

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .