Where to ask/discuss questions about using JavaFX

[Phil Race]

A mailing list would (I think) be best but where to host it is tricky.

I think we have been very tolerant of usage questions on the lists,
and it has been manageable (low volume, reasonable questions) for 10 years.
But I would not want to see openjfx-discuss endorsed as the place to go
to ask newbie questions (and up) that aren't related to developing the 
platform itself.

The openjdk projects and their mailing lists in general aren't used for 
that and
if we tried to open up a mailing list for usage questions under openjdk 
I don't
know how well that would go down with the openjdk admins etc.

I also don't think we should either endorse or discourage usage of 
stackoverflow,
although the signal to noise ratio there isn't as good as I'd like.

If a mailing list is established it probably should have a name like 
"openjfx-forum"

-phil.

On 8/13/19 4:06 AM, Johan Vos wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Recently, the question has raised again about what tool should be used by
> JavaFX developers to discuss the *usage* (patterns etc) of JavaFX (not the
> JavaFX Platform development itself).
>
> There are a number of technologies facilitating discussions.
> Many people ask questions on StackOverflow, and many answer questions.
> However, we do not control the moderation of SO, and it's also not a great
> environment for discussions.
>
> The OpenJFX mailinlists and the issue trackers are great for discussions,
> but those should be limited to the JavaFX platform itself (i.e. not for
> asking best patterns for layout etc).
>
> This leads us to the question where such discussions (between JavaFX
> developers) should take place. There are a number of options:
> 1. A mailinglist (e.g. this one, openjfx-discuss, or another one)
> 2. Keep it on Stackoverflow
> 3. Gitter
> 4. A Slack channel
> 5. IRC
> 6. ?
>
> Since this is a discussion that comes back every now and then, it would be
> good to centralize the pro's and con's of the different options, and
> hopefully even to come to a conclusion.
>
> Note that this is not about an "official" JavaFX developer discussion
> forum. We just need a pragmatic approach where developers can discuss their
> questions and suggestions.
> While it is possible and very welcome of course for OpenJFX committers to
> be active in these discussions as well, it should mainly be driven by
> JavaFX developers.
>
> - Johan