Recently Jeroen Pluimers and Jim McKeeth posted about three "Hidden Features of..." questions on Stack Overflow that were either deleted or nominated for deletion. They are:
The third one was deleted some time ago - this was not the first time I have followed a link to that question and found it deleted. So I asked it be undeleted, and now it has. (Turns out it was reopened, but reopening a deleted question doesn't undelete it.)
However, the discussion on my please-reopen question makes a good point: this question does not have many high-quality answers. The vast majority seem to be sourced from a single keyboard-shortcuts page. Many aren't well formatted. Some are useful, eg little-known timesavers. Some are not. I now feel slightly embarrassed for having asked it be undeleted. As is, in its current state I'd agree it should be closed, although I'd still disagree with the deletion because I don't believe in deleting any useful content.
The same question for other IDEs, such as this one for XCode, shows the level of quality such a question can have and the useful resource answers can be for users of an IDE. I personally find the good "Hidden Features of..." threads amazingly interesting. So this is a call to action: can we, Delphi users, improve the answers and show that such a question can be worth keeping alive?
(One useful possibility: the question is from 2010. There have been five versions of Delphi since then. I think Embarcadero will have added some useful stuff in that time. Let's get it visible!)
Update a couple of hours later: Hidden Features of the Delphi Language (the first link, and a really cool set of answers) has been deleted. Hidden Features of Oxygene is on hold. Hidden Features of XCode, a page I used to demonstrate that the Hidden features of IDE X questions can produce high-quality resources, is now locked. All these have occurred since I asked for the initial question to be reopened. I am sorry to think that by asking for one question to be undeleted, I may have inadvertently caused great damage to others.
For the IDE Features page: I have edited some posts in the initial question, but the question is now locked and I cannot edit it to provide links to answers, for example, to follow the way this question about Python is organised, suggested in the comments to my undelete request. This means I can't improve the question, and no-one can add new answers.
Update a couple of hours later: Hidden Features of the Delphi Language (the first link, and a really cool set of answers) has been deleted. Hidden Features of Oxygene is on hold. Hidden Features of XCode, a page I used to demonstrate that the Hidden features of IDE X questions can produce high-quality resources, is now locked. All these have occurred since I asked for the initial question to be reopened. I am sorry to think that by asking for one question to be undeleted, I may have inadvertently caused great damage to others.
For the IDE Features page: I have edited some posts in the initial question, but the question is now locked and I cannot edit it to provide links to answers, for example, to follow the way this question about Python is organised, suggested in the comments to my undelete request. This means I can't improve the question, and no-one can add new answers.
