Programming Forum Warning

[Brandon Martus]

When creating a new thread in the Programming forum, you will be greeted with a friendly message (similar to the Sticky thread from Raven_Writer. You will only get this message if you have less than 10 posts.

The warning says something along the lines of ..

Despite having 'Delphi' in its name, ChiefDelphi.com is mainly geared for the FIRST Robotics Competition and its related competitions (VEX, FLL, etc.) and is not a resource for Delphi programming help. While some people here may know Delphi, C++, Visual Basic, Pascal, OOP, and other programming languages and techniques, you may find it more helpful to post your questions elsewhere.

I point them to a few Delphi sites and a Google search, and invite them to ask their question if they must, but follow the rules, etc., etc.

This doesn't apply to 99%+ of you, but I wanted to let you know that it does happen, and may cut down on the # of programming threads that aren't FIRST-related.

This is expandable to a custom message per forum, so if you can think of other areas to harness this feature, let me know.

[Beth Sweet]

Yay Brandon! Brandon Martus, making CD readers lives easier since.... ummm, when were these forums started?

Edit: Brandon Martus, making CD readers lives easier since May 2001/Fall 98

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

...since.... ummm, when were these forums started?...

Yet another use for the waybackmachine !!!

If you search the waybackmachine for chiefdelphi.com you will find an old copy of Chiefdelphi.com from 1998. Even at that early date, the ChiefDelphi.com website already featured "Our famous discussion forums"

To find the REAL roots of the ChiefDelphi.com fora, you have to use the waybackmachine to find pchs-delphi.com, our old name (dorky as it was but what it seemed like a good idea at the time). If you do, you will find an old copy of pchs-delphi.com from June, 1997 that has a reference to the discussion forum.

Bottom line, from its earliest days, Team 47 has had the vision of using the web to be more than a "look at me and my team" type tool but a resource for team to team and person to person communciation. Remember that at this time in FIRST, they sent out updates via FAX machine that literally took multiple days to get out to every team on their list (really, no kidding).

I say it often and I know I run the risk of sounding braggadocious, but the ChiefDelphi.com site did not arrise spontaneously as a sort of cosmic www_accident_com.

It is what it is today because Team 47 had a vision and decided to build that vision brick by brick.

Many folks have worked hard to build this place on the web. Brandon certainly is high among those who have worked the hardest, but others, many not even associated with Team 47, have made signifcant contributions as well.

So, I lift my glass to ChiefDelphi.com, to Brandon, yes, but also to all those (perhaps even, you, fair reader) who made it great and continue to keep it great.

May it remain great for years to come.

Joe J.

[Venkatesh]

Who ran it before Brandon and co?

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by Venkatesh

Who ran it before Brandon and co?

Hey Grady, are you listening?? I think we need a "History of the CD forums" in the FIRST 101 series!

I am interested as well. Was Brandon there from the beginning, or was there a BB* time in CD forums history??


*That's "Before Brandon" btw. lol

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Venkatesh

Who ran it before Brandon and co?

Oddly enough, we had an engineer at Delphi who had his own website (a very strange idea back in 1996 - I think it was a site devoted to discovering cheat codes for PC games). Anyway, he kept talking about these script languages with unfamiliar names like Perl, CGI, tcl, etc. that he found that let him run a kind of home brew discussion forum on his site.

I begged him to help us get a discussion forum running on PCHS-Delphi.com. The rest is history.

As to who ran it, Brian (the Delphi Engineer), started things off. I personally hacked some of the scripts (though not many). When Brian opted to accept a buy out (Who could turn down lump sum payment of 12 months salary to go find another job?), we hunted around a bit and eventually heard that our lead teacher, Mike Martus, had a son who maybe could learn this Perl/CGI stuff.

I will tell you flat out, I have never seen a person learn so much so fast. Brandon is just amazing. And not just because he is a quick learner. He works REALLY HARD too, but even beyond that, he has vision.

When the Chief Delphi Team Leaders asked if we could have this or that feature, he always found a way. Even better, he suggested his own cool advanced features and dug into "real" software packages (like Vbulletin and others) that make this site hum.

Joe J.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

I will tell you flat out, I have never seen a person learn so much so fast. Brandon is just amazing. And not just because he is a quick learner. He works REALLY HARD too, but even beyond that, he has vision.
Joe J.

This probably isn't the right place to say it, but THANKS FOR EVERYTHING BRANDON (and the rest of the CD admins)! i've now officially become a CD addict.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Brandon Martus

This is expandable to a custom message per forum, so if you can think of other areas to harness this feature, let me know.

Brandon,

Maybe a message to new posters ( < 10 posts) upon posting in the General Forum along the lines of:

"There are many specific forums on this site, before you post please review the list of forums to see if there's a more relevant spot for your post."

I think this would help reduce some of the clutter in the General Forum during the build season.

[Brandon Martus]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Brandon,

Maybe a message to new posters ( < 10 posts) upon posting in the General Forum along the lines of:


I think this would help reduce some of the clutter in the General Forum during the build season.

Good idea. I also threw something in there about 'search before you post'.

-Brandon

[EricH]

Brandon, could you do something in Rules/Strategy about read the manual first (and the obligatory "search first")? Seems to me that there are a lot of threads about stuff that is in the manual and should have been at least reasonably obvious.

[AmyPrib]

Here's an interesting email from '98 that I found in the TechnoKats files. Joe Johnson unveiling the beginnings of CD.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pa...le&paperid=563

Originally Posted by EricH

Brandon, could you do something in Rules/Strategy about read the manual first (and the obligatory "search first")? Seems to me that there are a lot of threads about stuff that is in the manual and should have been at least reasonably obvious.

There typically is a sticky and many threads about "read the rules first" every year, but inevitably we'll end up with Q/As and CD questions that are answered in the game manual. Just try to answer them by pointing them in the right direction and kindly reiterate to read the rules thoroughly and let the game rules sink in before asking.