In this post by vroom a point is raised that I think is even more valid today than when it was written in March 2000.

This site has way too many places to paste code: Snippets Section, Cool Uses for Perl, Perl Poetry, Code Catacombs, Obfuscated Code and Craft. Not to mention the ability to place <code> tags inside any post to any section.

Some of these sections overlap considerably. Some of them (namely Perl Poetry and Obfuscated Code) are for particular types of code.

Delinearating between the others (Snippets Section, Cool Uses for Perl, Code Catacombs and Craft) is extremely difficult. Snippets is obviously for things that aren't complete scripts, but couldn't they also be posted to either of the other two sections? And couldn't an Obfu similarly be considered a Snippet?

My Suggestion
While I'm posting this suggestion, it comes from a range of Monks in a CB chat. The suggestion is to only allow posting to a 'Code Repository' section. Inside the Code Repository are sections that editors or Level 6ers or (...) then allocate to sub areas inside the repository. (similar look to the Perl Monks FAQ, but without the 'top level' posts under the categories, and put the categories at the top)

I'd suggest that when its posted to the Code Repository it appears on the front page of that section until its 'categorised' as above. This means that there's no immediate pressure for people to do the allocating.

This methodology will also allow people to quickly find something in there. If its code, its in the Repository. If its a CGI I'm looking for, I can funnel down the category tree until I find what I want. (Maybe submissions allow a suggested category tree?).

Now I think we should keep Poetry and Obfu. They're not really there for re-usable code. The rest should all be lumped into the 'Code Repository'.

Update: Added Cool Uses for Perl (thanks pfaut)

In reply to The Plethora of Code Sections by BigLug

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