Best Reference Site For Each Programming Language? 538
Howling writes "I've been a PHP programmer for a few years and after taking a trip through many sites Ive learned that www.php.net is probably the most complete source when looking for information/documentation. I have been trying to find similar sites for every other language (Java, perl or ASP, for instance) without equal success, though. I ask: what is the best documentation/reference site for your preferred programming language?"
PHP.net is great. (Score:5, Insightful)
PHP has probably the best documentation of an language thanks to PHP.net. It is really wonderful, everyone should follow their lead.
Re:Cookbook site (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a pathetic one. You've made no outrageous link from "this sorta piece" to "deserves to get offshored". You just stuck them in the same sentence. You should have written something to draw people along to agreeing or violently disagreeing with your assertion. You've given people nothing to bite on. It's a hook with no bait. Pathetic.
Visual Basic.Net? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:For all languages (Score:2, Insightful)
ask.slashdot.org
*goose*
Re:C: K&R. (Score:2, Insightful)
20 years ago this was a great idea, and Kernighan&Ritchie stands up as a fine example of technical writing (IMHO at least), but the coding guidelines there (short variable names, some of the control structure idioms, and even arguably the brace conventions) were written for an age when you had a reasonable shot at out-optimizing your compiler, there was a good chance you were developing on an 80x24 terminal, and it was critical to write for speed over clarity. In the modern world of IDEs and optimizing compilers a lot of K&R is just painful.
Re:Here's what I do (Score:2, Insightful)
From OP: " the best documentation/reference site"
A forum is not a reference.
Re:PHP.net is great. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here's what I do (Score:3, Insightful)
A forum is not a reference.
That sounds suspiciously like an opinion :)
I tend to agree with you, but I find the best reference sites also have a forum or comment section. PHP.net is a great example of this.
why?? (Score:0, Insightful)
Why do stupid questions such as this one make it to slashdot?
Re:C: K&R. (Score:4, Insightful)
But style aside, the content of the book is classic, especially when you start getting into systems programming. These guys had the logical structure of a good computer system worked out a long time ago! Considering that the UNIX C API was basically the first draft of POSIX, reading this book is a must if you ever want to play with the low-level (aka, fun) parts of your operating system. This book almost never leaves my desk, even though I do most of my work in Perl and PHP nowadays.
I love C because it is a sparse programming language that is very expressive, mainly due to pointers. That has a big influence on my code in other languages, for better or worse. But I find C to be very readable, and I try to do the same for other programs. A lot of "modern" languages just look like barf to me, but I'm probably biased.
Re:PHP.net is great. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Here's what I do (Score:3, Insightful)
Well usually the code samples that people have in the php.net/functionname pages are terrible and best avoided, but if nothing else they provide decent inspiration. Even if that inspiration is sometimes for how not to do things. While I do 90% of my work in PHP, it being so loosely typed comes with a SERIOUS lack of best practice guidelines.
Having said all of that, PHP's reference material accessibility has probably been one of the biggest factors in my decision to do most of my work in it (LAMP servers being so ubiquitous is another). I always found the .net documentation really painful to work with when I was doing a little work in that department, and it did nothing to lower my dislike for Microsoft. Oh well.
Re:Here's what I do (Score:2, Insightful)
Please don't be so fast with suggesting that php.net's user comments are "a great example". Many many many of the comments posted there are posted by people who have absolutely no clue wtf they're doing, and have no business trying to pass on their "knowledge" to others.
Far too many of the comments are absolutely WRONG. Not just inaccurate or slightly off-base, but completely ****ed. It'd be like looking up the function color_of_sky(), and reading a user comment that states "returns how many minutes per day the elephant dances on a teacup". If you've never used the function before and the official description is a little lacking, you might walk away actually thinking the function has something to do with dancing elephants.
Of course, the truly dangerous comments are the ones that look like they're coming from someone who knows what they're talking about, when in fact they're just spewing BS they think is correct. For example, a user posting that color_of_sky() returns "blue" between 8am-8pm GMT, otherwise "black". When in fact it returns "blue" between 8am-8pm *local time*, "red" between 8:01-9:30pm, otherwise "black".
I love php.net's comments sometimes (because I can sort through the junk), but if the majority of people reading them are of the same calibre of programmer as those posting them, then they're probably doing more harm than good.
Re:Cookbook site (Score:1, Insightful)
A good troll would've cherry picked a half dozen responses and taken them to task in seriously unfair but funny fashion... HTML/CSS, they can leave the "for Dummies" off the title of the book. Object PASCAL, oh I bet they'll need a second server farm to serve all the clickthrus they're going to get. Like that.
Re:Cookbook site (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? Cause people offshore don't use web resources to learn new languages?
Assembly? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Java.sun.com (Score:3, Insightful)
just google:
java X class
where X is whatever you want. Top results will be sun java docs which are complete and have links to parent and descendent classes, implemented interfaces, etc.
The problem here is that google sends you to outdated documentation, sometimes as far as 7 years old javadocs from old versions. It's better to just go to java.sun.com and get a link to the live docs and stick it in your bookmarks, especially since there is more info there that's not just javadocs.
Also ##java on freenode IRC is an excellent resource if you don't come in acting like an entitled moron...
Oh and as a bonus for Java-ites, if you're on a Mac, grab Xcode (free) and its documentation browser will download and maintain an updated copy of the javadoc with decent searching functions. Furthermore any decent IDE (Eclipse IDEA NetBeans) should have their own way of quickly linking you to javadoc.
Re:For all languages (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope, that's only true when you're linking in from Google. They do cloaking.
I just clicked on your link and am certain I did not see any answers.
Re:scissors beats paper, paper beats the internet (Score:3, Insightful)
"The best programming languages...", I am saddened that people would think there is a best programming language. it reeks of elitism.
For javascript and browser compatibility (Score:2, Insightful)
Excellent Post (Score:3, Insightful)
Next question - where is the best location to maintain the compiled results? In the meantime, I'm bookmarking this discussion.