hey guys :)

Great design, @Ludwik.

Go check out, comment and vote on New Design 1.0!

@Ludwik Hey! Good job on the design! :)

@Ludwik How do you guys do this? Do you take a screenshot of an existing page and play with it as an image, or do you implement the CSS and adjust a real webpage, then take a screenshot?

@Hosch250 thanks for feedback regarding squares in background. i think it's subjective to like it or not. but i do respect that opinion. the reason why i added this pattern is because i wanted this design to be less "flat" (by 'flat' i don't mean that trend in webdesign but generaly - feeling). but i'll be more than happy to upload version without squares for comparison

@Ludwik is the logo decided on? if not, could we see some more logo designs? i really liked this one i.stack.imgur.com/IgZVw.png

@Hosch250 there are few designers at StackOverflow. so it depends who you gonna ask :) i think some of us (including me) create design first based on template in photoshop or sketch (i prefer sketch) and then iterate (if needed, based on feedback) and move on with coding.

@Hosch250 but some of us just go straight to CSS editor i believe :)

When I design webpages, I build the webpage and play with the CSS directly. I'm no graphic designer, though.

@mjolka It looks like a Google Map point of interest! :p

@mjolka there was a lot of people who thought this logo looks too similar to maps' pin.

@Hosch250 When I design webpages, I cry and swear. To each his methods I guess

@mjolka - is that like a "zoom in" type thing?

(magnifier)?

@EBrown nope. :)

@Ludwik No offense meant, but this seems like a lazy design.

@TopinFrassi this method is good too!

Is it just me or the light-ish blue (e.g. "Ask Question", etc.) buttons color is very similar to beta-blue?

Hmm, maybe the dapples would be better if they were slightly more 'transparent', whatever the real term is.

I think the main problem is they compete with the links for eye-time - especially the blue Questions link.

@Ludwik - critical crowd.... but, can you post an example of what block-quotes look like too?

@EBrown It's hard to come up with something original about code reviews that don't make it bulk or weird :p

The code in the example is not syntax-colored, but the dark block for the code is good.

@Phrancis That's also part of our culture, lol

We have a lot of questions where text-quoting is common though.

I also think the main fonts are too heavy.

It's hard to read the question for me.

@Phrancis - I agree with the blue being a little like the "beta blue", but I think I agree with @TopinFrassi that it is a shout-out to our heritage.... ;-)

@EBrown i understand that. the thing is that CR and every other site from s.tk/sites is part of bigger network: Stack Exchange. we have to use the same structure etc. and when we work on particular site's design we can play only with CSS (and there are still some restrictions to keep stuff consistent across whole network). we can't redesign everything. and our goal is usually to add some personality and original feeling to particular site :)

@EBrown It may be because the image reduced the crispness of the text.

I really like the use of the mono-spaced type for the top links, and tags

Images are known for being less crisp than raw text.

@Ludwik I don't mean like that. The problem I see is that the community did the bulk of the work for you. The badges are basic, the logo was community designed, the background is just a bunch of blocks of different colour...it seems like it was just "throw together", for lack of a better term.

Again, just my opinion, and I don't mean to be offensive, but it seems lazy.

Well, the badges kind of have to be basic, and I like them.

@Ludwik i get that, but i'm a bit concerned that the feedback on the logo only came from people who were in chat at that particular time. if different logo designs are posted on meta, more people will have more time to see them, and to provide feedback

What about the idea of using ++ and -- instead of up and down arrows for voting?

@mjolka Good point!

@mjolka sure, but it's very hard to get opinion of everyone :( and it would take another year (:)) to finish stuff

I'm thrilled (though not very surprised) that y'all are excited! Just a gentle reminder, for substantive commentary, could you post on meta in addition to or instead of here, so that people who aren't in chat at the moment can weigh in/not duplicate effort later on?

@EBrown I don't get how that could come up as not-offensive :p

@TopinFrassi Unfortunately most critical statements come across as offensive, it's part of being critical about something.

@EBrown That's right. I mean, you've got some critics but they are offensive. It doesn't make your critic any less valuable (Not that I necessarily agree with it but you get my point)

@EBrown i get your point. i can only say that even if this might seem to some people as "lazy design" it actually requires quite a lot of work, including research and stuff like that. badges are basic but they supposed to be readable and original and be recognizable on small sizes (like 8px or so) - so we can't get too crazy here.

@Ludwik How about a 8px fire-breathing dragon-riding monkey? :D

@Phrancis highlighting will be included in final product of course

Ah ok, phew :)

@TopinFrassi i was more thinking about rubber duck with red gloves riding on bicycle. maybe even gif :)

@Ludwik Seems legit. :p

@Ludwik, At Code Review we can use \$ to use MathJax syntax, like in \$O(n)\$, and this we do use when doing time and space complexity reviews. On Mathematica they only use $, is this part of the design, or part of configuration? I for one, would like for this to be just the $.

@EBrown as for "logo designed by community" - i wish every logo could be designed by community. it's logo for community and I tried to gather as many opinions as possible, including stuff mentioned here meta.codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/70/…

@holroy not design related but i will ask someone to take a look at this. thanks for reporting!

@Ludwik Great...

@holroy The reason we use \$ is because there were many posts that included a plain $ sign when MathJax was introduced, and the formatting on those posts would've been messed up.

@holroy blame PHP

@EthanBierlein Is that still a valid reason? Or couldn't we do a search-and-replace?

@holroy I think it's still a valid reason.

$foo = "borked jax"

/me don't like to do `\` on a Mac keyboard... <kbd>Option+Shift+7</kdb>

Gotta remember that Math.SE practically never use code blocks so $ is not a problem for them

well blacklisting php and powershell would solve that problem

@Mat'sMug among others ... ;0

Eh... You shouldn't have code inlined without being escaped anyway, I mean... And code blocks are not scanned for MathJax, if I'm not mistaken...

it's more complicated than that

when MathJax was introduced, $ was the delimiter.

@Mat'sMug Don't you dare blacklist my Powershell!

i'm going to grab a dinner guys. thank you so much for valuable feedback so far on design! really appreciate it :)

@Mat'sMug So CodeReview is the odd one out, not using the default delimiter?

found it

@Phrancis { } - those are nice too. i'm gonna try them. but my first thought is that they are too detailed for non-retina screens. but that's just a thought. i will take them for a ride anyway!

> I just want to write the quadratic equation nicely. Having to resort to ASCII art to do so is just ridiculously frustrating!

@Ludwik {•} then?

@Mat'sMug Or [], which still is not XML & HTML, but easier to visualize clearly on smaller screens

so much for VB folks

That bronce is not the right color, and they need a little squishing vertically.

(i.e. as an SVG instead of an actual character)

As long as they are as big as a text brace, they'll be fine.

@rolfl Where'd you get those, BTW?

@Phrancis Gimp.

Oh cool

They are just the characters typed in to text boxes in gimp, with bold, and color, and then exported as png.

What's that font used as primary in the posts? I think it looks lots better than the plain old Arial from the beta site!

I copy/pasted the "black" background over the existing icons from the previous image.

Photomonkey

looks like last year was the last year we could own the beta-site Winter Bash rankings...

@Mat'sMug Agreed, but no language I know of uses <> for code blocks, and most that have them use {}. SGML and derivatives are the only things I know of that use <> as something other than an operator, and even then, they should be doubled to become a "block", as in <><>

hey, I agree with the braces! braces FTW!

@Mat'sMug Don't you dare tell me you now want to extend your beta period....

@Pops I didn't say that ;-)

Good, I can't really afford to replace all the servers I was about to smash.

hehehe .....

HI POPS!!!!

Man, building a Brainfuck optimizer is harder than it looks.

@EBrown because it looks easy?

@rolfl Yo.

@rolfl I think they should be next-line braces </sarcasm>

@Mat'sMug Well I just made it a little easier with a switch statement.

This is still the ugliest C# I've written in a while.

I put this^ together for those who like side-by-side comparison

@Phrancis there's a bug on the right side. Jamal isn't the editor??

@Phrancis I like the second better, with more background color.

Isn't the left side just the beta theme?

@Hosch250 aye, keen eye

@Mat'sMug Obviously the new design is more of a spoof, using what appears to be a different version of the question, or some bits and pieces put together

@Hosch250 Yes, that's exactly the idea ;p

@Mat'sMug Elementary, my dear Watson.

possible answer invalidation by Deduplicator on question by DeiDei: codereview.stackexchange.com/posts/111624/revisions

@Pops since I got you here, and since there's been another podcast release...

is there any chance to be properly notified about ongoing podcast recordings?

I like those more than listening to the podcast after the fact

@Vogel612 I don't know the answer to that offhand... I'll get back to you.

I'll look forward to it. I can't check twitter every hour or so for a new tweet by @spolsky.

The last time I asked (in August this year) the answer was "no," unfortunately.

The trick is to join the Assembly chat room....... and wait for notifications.

@rolfl hmm... I should try that...

I should write a script to watch for activity there that sends out emails.

I need practice interacting with the internet when programming anyway.

Actually, since it would run on your side, I could just have it start some music, or something.

I actually have the official SE Podcast room in my favorites, but it's just totally dead

ttgh

same here

This is not working at all.

@SimonForsberg The new version of my Brainfuck compiler works, and it optimizes things too.

You working on BrainDuck?

@EBrown I disagree. Minimalist doesn't mean lazy — and I wouldn't even consider this design minimalist. I prefer to convey a businesslike feel. Save the art sites like for Anime.

Less is more.

Just because you have a less-is-more avatar.... @200_success .... ;-)

Isn't less-is-more generally the philosophy we have around here?

@200_success Are you suggesting I just leave GPA completely out of my DB?

I was thinking I would calculate it at the end of each semester and essentially cache it.

So it does sound like a reporting database, then.

Maybe. Perhaps you should have a GPA history table? Dunno.

stackoverflow.com/…

I could just leave it out, if that was what you were suggesting.

What is the difference between a reporting DB and a system of record?

I think GPA might work good in a view instead of a table field?

Ideally, you want no redundant data in your database.

@nhgrif Are you going for the +100 badge on that top one?

That link goes with the email I pasted above.

However, that would make some queries slow.

That is an email I got from a candidate I rejected today.

@Phrancis I agree

So, sometimes you'll want to dump the data into a reporting database in an easier-to-query format.

Like Stack Exchange Data Explorer.

The scheme in SEDE is not the "real" schema in production.