Request to re-open "Find out relation between Devices…" question

Question

I had sought out review for a question about some proprietary code that I am working on. The code in question retrieves information from a list of one-to-many mappings and seeks to build a relationship between devices based on that. The code on CR was posted after obfuscation and was understood.

https://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/186516/find-out-relation-between-devices-when-given-a-one-to-many-list-of-mappings-in-l?noredirect=1#comment355957_186516

The Thing is actually the type of the device used. For example destinationTurbineMapping has been redacted to destinationThingMapping. Further, it was found that the type of device did not have relevance to the code itself because it was all about the same device. And therefore, even in my source code, I have modified it to destinationMapping.

One answer mentioned that I did not need to include the type of device name(Thing) because it was unnecessary. I found this to be very useful to make the variable names meaningful so as to help future readers. So I made the edit to the question. I even edited the original source code on my workstation to reflect the same.

No other changes.

However, my edit was rolled back by a user citing that an edit would invalidate the answer, for which I enquired whether the answer could be edited ever so slightly to reflect this change my mentioning that the question no longer has it.

That's it. The next thing I know, the question gets put on hold for being off-topic citing unoriginal code. (one person involved was the same user who asked me not to edit)

I request that the question be re-opened. If not, I request for clarification on why the question is off-topic and what I can do to make it not so. I'd be happy to answer any doubts.

Answer 1

First I'd like to apologies that you've been put in this horrible situation. Whilst your code was off-topic to start off with, you've tried many ways to get the question to be on-topic. Mostly to be shot down because you supposedly answer invalidated.

This is unfair on you, as someone else broke our rules. But you're the one to be punished.

This is not the first time this has happened, and last time we as a community said that you should be able to edit your question. Unfortunately some people don't follow, or remember, this meta discussion. And favour the don't answer invalidate policy.

Either way, the answer has now been removed, and so you can edit the question in any way you want. Which you should have been allowed to do anyway.

---

Your question was closed as it's Pseudo/example/stub code, rather than you not owning it. This was addressed in the comments:

• Please include code for ThingCustomStruct1 and dataTag. - Jesse C. Slicer link

• Note that sourceDestinationThingMappings[sourceThingName]).Add(destinationThingName); breaks the build: there's either a bracket missing, or one too many. - BCdotWEB link

I'm not a C# professional, and so I don't know if these are the only problems, or if the above have been fixed.

And so I'd recommend that you'd update your question with the entire of your code. If you post your code so that we can copy the code, run it in our IDE, and for it to output the information that you want, then there shouldn't be a problem.

The only other things would be to remove this from the variable names, as that seems to make a lot of people think it's example code. Which you have done.

Answer 2

It happens regularly that the code in the post is broken (or otherwise not ready for review), but the problem is too complex to explain or demonstrate in the limited space afforded by a comment, and needs to be posted as an answer. Here's an example from earlier today, here's another from a week ago, here's a third with a detailed explanation of how to discover the bug, and here are some more: 1 2 3.

Current procedure

What we (Code Review regulars) would like to happen in these cases is:

1. We vote to put the question with the broken (or otherwise unreviewable) code on hold.

2. The OP fixes the code.

3. The OP posts a new question with the improved code.

The reason we would prefer this is that it leaves a record of what the problem was — sometimes the technique needed to discover a bug is interesting, but even if it's just a reminder not to post code without testing it, that's still valuable.

Is the procedure too onerous on the OP? It doesn't seem difficult to me to copy the text of the question that was closed, and paste it into a new question. But I guess it might not seem so easy for a beginner.

Alternative procedure

But if we are agreed that is too hard, then what's the alternative? Perhaps:

1. We vote to put the question on hold.

2. The OP fixes the code.

3. The OP updates the question.

4. We vote to reopen the question.

5. The reviewer who explained the original problem deletes the answer in which they explained it (since this answer is now unrelated to the question). Or someone else flags it for deletion by a moderator if the reviewer does not delete their answer in a timely fashion.

This is more complex than the first procedure, it takes substantially longer (because of the delay at step 4), it erases the record of original problem and its discovery, and denies credit to the person who discovered and described the problem. I don't think it's an improvement at all.

Answer 3

The code in question, although you state it is your code and you maintain it and you have added enough context, is too much obfuscated.

In its current form it just looks too much like example code because of all the "things". If you would have used different names like device instead of thing the code would speak for itself and one wouldn't need to read all the text in question. In addition the context of the question would be more clear.

But you had choosen to go the other way stating

I have written a function in my backend that takes a list of on-to-many mappings of communication (already defined by Legacy Code) from one Thing(proprietary Device name redacted) to another.

and plastered your code with things.

In its current form I won't vote to reopen the question. Unfortunately you can't make the question on-topic without changing the code. Changing the code like you did had invalidated the given answer in many points.

• names of variables (removing obfuscation)
• var vs concrete type
• PascalCase vs camelCase

hence rolling back the edit had been the correct way.

As long as the answerer doesn't delete his/her answer you can't make the question on-topic. You could just accept it (the answer and the fact that it can't be made on-topic anymore) and ask a follow-up question.

If you tend to ask a follow-up question you could/should integrate the mentioned points of the answer and fix your code in a way that it isn't obfuscated that much.