I think that the Community of Practice for C/C++ is so diverse that it is difficult for a broad site dedicated to just the broad topic of C/C++ to succeed. You would need to find more granularity in the environment to make it worth peoples perceived effort to be a member.
(If you can't tell, I'm currently studying knowledge managment as it applies to large, diverse communities - either across a corporation's tier structure or other perceived borders/boundaries)
It would probably behoove whoever wanted to create such a community site to first do some serious research into some of the varied disciplines that C/C++ programmers find themselves in and try and determine which of them would be best for your environment.
There are a large number of areas that these code monkeys might find themselves in:
- Embedded
- *NIX Systems, GUI, etc.
- Win32 Platform
- Win32 API / MFC
- Win32 Graphics (OpenGL, Direct 3d, et al.)
- etc, etc, etc...
and a myriad of different discussion topics for each that could probably each fill a site unto themselves.
With this in mind, I think that it would be difficult to create a generic enough site for ALL C/C++ programmers to come and feel like a part of the community. You would probably have to start with a generic site, and then create sections as these areas of use gathered strength and their own community of practice within the site itself.
As an aside, the Perl Monks community is an incredible example of a strong and mature Community of Practice, and would/will make an excellent use-case for creating communities within my (any) corporation...I just wanted to say thanks. And for those that might be interested, an excellent text on the subject (that all others seem to reference) can be found here
C-.
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Flex the Geek
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