Nowadays I see lots of questions using code sample display for highlight, not really on code samples.  This is an example how it looks.  I see comments about they are ok to use, and some other comments saying reverse. Is it ok to use them like that?
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When reviewing Suggested Edits on Stack Overflow, I often come across "fixed formatting" suggestions that use  to place emphasis on certain keywords, but isn't actual code.  For example:     I am having a difficult time with a background task in iOS. The problem I seem to be facing is that iOS is silently terminating the App if my background task runs for too long. What can I do to increase time iOS will wait for my background task to complete?   Gets edited to:     I am having a difficult time with a background task in iOS. The problem I seem to be facing is that iOS is silently terminating the App if my background task runs for too long. What can I do to increase time iOS will wait for my background task to complete?   This seems like an invalid use of an inline code span because, well, it isn't code, and it is distracting. There are a    of these edits being made. Often enough they get approved, which reinforces the behavior.  Is this a valid use of inline code spans? If not, should it be edited and corrected? Should edits suggesting these changes be rejected?
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It seems like a lot of people try to display tables in Stack&nbsp;Overflow questions, but don't do a very good job. Is there Markdown syntax that supports creating a proper table?
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Please have a look at . When the question was asked by the OP, it had a scope related problem in the code snippet posted in it. 2 answers were posted for that question. But after the answers were posted, a friend of mine from Stack Overflow, edited the question(not sure with what intention) in such a way that the bug in the code was gone(it actually self answered the question). Please have a look at the question revision history, where I've rolled back the question to the original state, which has the problem in place.  My question is that, should such a practice be allowed/encouraged that an edit to a question renders all the answers posted for that question, totally irrelevant? As anybody who comes to have a look at the question later, will be highly confused as to why a question was asked without any problem and there were so many answers posted to it(not everybody cares to go through the revision history)? I happened to notice that, but not everybody would notice it.
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I have heard/read the term but don't quite understand what it means.  When should I use this technique and how would I use it? Can anyone provide a good code sample?
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When posting a question with some code (or generally any question with more detailed description and some explaining) you have to do lots of scrolling when reviewing the changes. While there is huge amount of empty space on both sides. So many people have wide screens these days, I think they might appreciate the question preview instead of that empty space so there would be way less scrolling.  Also note this suggestion does not say "screw those with lower res. screens".
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I notice a steady stream questions in the HTML and CSS tags that point to a site or CSS style sheet, and describe a problem without incorporating any code into the question. A few random examples:      (at least has a screenshot, but still)  Although it is totally understandable and natural for an OP to ask this way - they probably even think they are doing the site a service by not cluttering it! -  I can't shake the feeling that these questions are a problem: They will lose all value to future generations when the problem has been fixed. The OP is likely to fix the problem in the site source, and it becomes impossible to ever again see the source code of the problem that the answers solve. Asking the OP to incorporate code into the answer will work sometimes, but usually it won't. Is this a real problem? If it is, what to do?
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Sometimes we get questions where the problem can't be reproduced given the information OP mentioned. Sometimes we get questions where OP posts code and asks why the code doesn't work where in fact the code does work.   Here is  I just ran into in the edit queue. However, we've all seen them.  In the example  the question basically saying "When using your code in an isolated environment it works. This is not the first or tenth time I've seen these sort of answer.   Should users post these sort of answers? Are they useful for the site? Why?  Note: This is not about whether or not to close such questions. I think that's clear.
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Currently, Stack Exchange’s Markdown parser only allows four-space indents to represent code blocks:      // some code     // another line of code    and other Markdown implementations allow for an alternative syntax, that doesn’t require indenting each code line:  ``` // some code // another line of code ```   This is much more convenient to type out. It would be super useful if Stack Exchange could support this syntax.    By extension, this syntax also allow you to specify the source language right after the opening ```:  ```js // some code // another line of code ```   …which would then enable syntax highlighting for that specific language. Although it’s interesting metadata, I don’t think this feature is needed on Stack Overflow, as the syntax highlighting library works pretty well for various languages.  So, even if you would allow this syntax but ignore the ```language, this would greatly improve my productivity on Stack Exchange.  What do you think?  The moderators are currently collecting feedback regarding this feature, so please post a comment with your thoughts. Good idea? Bad idea? Don’t really care? What do you think are the benefits/drawbacks? Experiences? Let them know! Thanks!
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How can I make a word in a code sample bold? I only see asterisks around the expected bold text.  sample **sample** sample
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I'm trying to post a sample of code that looks like this:        Look at all of those comments, and it still won't allow me post! What am I doing wrong?
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When reviewing Suggested Edits the output is marked using red and green background colors on the text. Sometimes this makes it hard to see the actual changes.  It would be nice if there was a button that turns off the diff color highlighting as long as the mouse is pressed on it (or hovers it or whatever), so one can switch fast between the "natural" look and the diff view.  Just to avoid misunderstandings: The color diff should stay the default view as it does a great job in helping to locate the changes, but it does not help in evaluating them.
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Today I posted  about a C++ issue I found a bit confusing. Since I am a complete beginner in C++, all I could do was to write a short summary and ask for advice. The question attracted a couple of insightful answers and I was quite happy with those. To my complete surprise, an hour later the question had received 3 downvotes without any comment or suggestion. Since I always put effort into making my posts decently formatted and thorough, it kind of struck a nerve. I was puzzled as to why. I am not a native English speaker so nuances of language usually elude me. Is it the wording? Tone? Formatting? Too RTFM? To quote a comment from :  @Martinho: I missed that OP's passing Buffer the first time. Can't imagine someone managing C strings without any idea how the C string functions work...  Did the question get downvoted because it displayed ignorance? How could I have asked it differently to avoid the downvotes?  Update I just had.. um.. a strange exchange with one of the members from the C++ community. That member posted an answer here attempting to explain the background. However, after realizing the contradiction in hers/his arguments a possibility of an extended chat session, the delete link got clicked. I am not going to reveal the identity but nevertheless will share the discussion. I feel it sheds some light on the issue. Note that the person was apparently not one of the voters. The deleted answer  I think the accepted answer to the original question also answers this question: There are lots of problems with your code. You asked why one piece of code (with several errors) didn't work, when some other code (also with several errors) seemed to work better. In reality the difference was just random, and neither of them really works. It took a lot of effort for someone to put together an answer, and I didn't have the time (being at work), so would just have downvoted if there hadn't been enough downvotes already. Leaving a comment that there were several errors in the functions didn't seem to be constructive either. Guess that those who did downvote might have felt the same.  The comment trail  Okay. Are You saying that the C++ community downvoted it because they had either no time or no motivation to answer it properly? – Saul 19 mins ago No, I'm saying it might have been downvoted because it wasn't seen as a good question. The lack of comments can be because of limited time. It was in my case. – XXX 15 mins ago Note that if you had asked the question right now, I might have answered it. Six hours ago I had to do some payed work. – XXX 8 mins ago Uh.. why would one want to downvote a question when busy but be willing to answer it later? To communicate that &quot;your question is unwelcome at this time, I am doing paid work, come back later&quot;? In such a scenario there is nothing I can do to make it appear as a good question. - Saul 1 mins ago
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The  corrected formatting issues in the code posted by the OP. In the  you can see line breaks in the code posted.   Most of the time when someone rejects a suggested edit, a proper reason is given, like This edit is too minor; suggested edits should be substantive improvements addressing multiple issues in the post.. Shouldn't  also provide some reason while rejecting suggested edits?  Update Another similar . A reviewer  approves and  rejects (ofcourse without sharing any reasons) !
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Is there a good SE site that is only about refactoring?  I know there are sites like this, but SO has the largest audience of programmers so a section where you can just post a code snippet and people can give advice on refactoring it.
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that I posted on Meta.Programmers was rather broken, with a block quote replaced by apparently random letters and numbers. Aarthi fixed it with a non-breaking space, but I don't understand what went wrong.  When I opened the post for editing, the displayed text was what I intended to go there. It only happens when the post is viewed in the reading mode. The preview also displayed the text correctly.
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Those of us who have been using SO (or any SE site for that matter) for a while know that the box where we type our text is not identical to what is posted (because of various markdown capabilities we are given). We also know that there is a display below the text box that shows us what our post will actually look like once we are done, and we know how to format thing the way we would like them to look.  I've noticed a trend where a user will format things nicely (or somewhat nicely) as plaintext where they type, and ignore the fact that it is not at all formatted like that in the actual post (despite the fact that it is displayed, live, directly below where they are typing). Lists that are meant to span several lines appear as a single string across one line running onto several, code is partially code-formatted, etc...  I suggest that new users and users with many third-party edits (corrections by more experienced users), be prseented with a confirmation dialog when posting confirming that they have, in fact, checked out how their post will actually appear once posted, and that it is accurate. To address concerns regarding reduced conversions, a possible solution would be to bypass the dialog for absolute first posts, since those will be in First Post review queue anyway.  This will:   Make it easier for everyone to read Reduce the amount of editing we have to do to make things readable Make it easier to take new, serious posters seriously, as their questions won't look lazy and effortless due to lack of formatting.   Mock up of dialog to be displayed:   Possible criteria for whether to display dialog:  if posts == 0:     False if posts &lt; 5:  # questions AND answers     True if third_party_edits / posts &gt; .3: # 30% "fixed" by others     True
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Notes:  Answers will occasionally be moved to the  when there are too many of them. When using them to report bugs, keep an eye on the post.    This site, Meta Stack Exchange, is usually used as a &quot;test bed&quot; for pending changes happening to the way text is rendered on all network sites. Changes to text rendering that are going to be rolled out to the network are usually deployed here first to test them out and fix any potential glitches. Currently, there are no such changes pending, but if there were, keep in mind that text posted here may render differently from the other sites until the changes roll out to them as well.    As per Jeff's suggestion in : You can use this question as a formatting sandbox. You can:  edit  itself ( questions such as this one require only 100 reputation to edit instead of 2,000) post answers to this question (This question might be , requiring earning 10 reputation on this site to answer) post comments to this question or its answers test suspected bugs with the editor or the rendering post ponies (only when mods are asleep)   Beware that since the  in December 2010, and  added in March 2011, no syntax highlighting is applied unless the question's tags or an inline hint enable it. So, to test highlighting here in the sandbox:  , you can use GitHub-flavor fenced code blocks in your posts, specifying the language after the opening fence: ```html While not hinted otherwise: &lt;html&gt;&lt;/html&gt; source &lt;b&gt;goes&lt;/b&gt; &quot;here&quot;. ```  ```js var a = 3; while (not (a &gt; 0)) {     alert(&quot;JavaScript code &lt;b&gt;goes&lt;/b&gt; here.&quot;); } ```   Or:  Create code blocks in any way (using the fence notation above, the four-space indent form, or using HTML &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; tags).  Save your post.  Use your browser's developer tools to edit the resulting HTML. To open developer tools, press F12, or ⌥⌘ I on Mac.  Find the &lt;pre&gt; element and add the attribute class=&quot;prettyprint&quot;, or change it into one of the valid syntax hints linked above, like class=&quot;lang-vb prettyprint&quot;.  Run the following in the location bar: javascript:prettyPrint(); or prettyPrint() in the console.     Answers that are considered annoying or obnoxious, or that cause breakage for users, will be deleted. This is .