Can I ask a "Comment my macro" question?

Question

For someone like who is just starting out with TeX programming, it can be hard to produce quality code. I try to read as much as I can from various guides, but often my code may look dirty and ugly to the eye of an expert, even if it's completely doing its job.

Say I wrote some code, but then I wonder whether that's some good code or not. The best solution I can think of would be to ask a question like this:

CNC Comment my code please?

---

I need some code to test if a letter is a Q, a T or something else. I wrote this:

\def\awesomemacro#1 {% \let\ivebeenhere0 \if#1Q This letter was a {\bf Q}\let\ivebeenhere1 \fi \if#1T This letter was a {\bf T}\let\ivebeenhere1 \fi \ifx\ivebeenhere0 This letter is so weird\fi }

It works. Can I improve it?

After writing this, one may hope for answers like

You should indent your code

or

You should use a boolean

or

Why don't you go fishing instead?

Of course, such a generic title would help no one: it would be extremely hard to find if you google it, and it's going to pop up with unrelated searches. But if the title were something like Is this the best way to write an else-if statement?, it would be easy to find and maybe even helpful. Then again, I actually needed what I was asking, i.e. a cnc on my work (including things like the use of \bf instead of \textbf), which the new seo-friendly title does not represent completely.

So, my question here is: what's a good way to ask "cnc this" questions?

EDIT: ff524 pointed out that this kind of question would be perfect for Code Review. I totally forgot about that site. Feel pretty dumb right now.

EDIT2: Ok removed the cnc part. It was just "comment and criticism", it's often used in graphic design forums to ask others what they think about your work without sugarcoating. Sorry.

Answer 1

We've had a similar discussion about a year ago. Originally it seemed like it received good attention, but I had the impression that interest dwindled as it because obvious that the benefit to the community was diminishing. Well, it did in my opinion, since it seemed benefit the wider community less and less..

Tread lightly with these types of questions as

1. it may solicit primarily opinion-based answers - what I think as being "good code" may differ from what others think; and

2. there may be little benefit to the community as a whole - formerly these were classified as too localized, while now it may be considered off topic or maybe "unclear", even though it may not be off-topic nor unclear.

The first point is almost factual, and there's very little to argue about. The second is more subtle, and mostly visible to long-term users of the main site - people who've been around long enough to see what works and what doesn't.

So, in answer to your question "What's a good way to ask 'CNC this' questions?":

1. Be specific about what you want - nothing general/generic;
2. Consider whether this is of benefit to this community, otherwise post it on CodeReview;
3. Tag it appropriately;
4. Accept that some people will not like it.

Answer 2

Yes, you can.

My evidence: When to use \edef, \noexpand, and \expandafter?

I'd recommend that you make your question easy to answer (as I tried to do in the above). Pick out one thing that you want to focus on and make your question about that. Make it clear what you're looking for in an answer. You can add the CNC (whatever that is) as motivation and so make it plain that any additional comments would be welcome, but focussing on one thing per question is the way that this site works best.