This part of the forum is about chess programming. It seems normal to me that now and then a programming topic is discussed that is not specifically tied to chess, but that most chess programmers inevitably will have to deal with at some point.
Well at least we agree on that, that it is a chess-programing forum
Other "off-topic" programming threads are "MEM_LARGE_PAGES", "LLVM toolchain on Windows" (started in some other part of this forum and moved to this "programming forum" upon request), "64bit compile", "
Clang vs GCC [stockfish 4]" (was not about SF), "Writing to a Text File (Thread Safe)", "Speech synthesis", "Symbolic: I/O handling and sample logfile" (as much about Symbolic as the strcpy() threads about crafty), "You can't beat a good compiler... right?", "goto thread (split)", "Barbara Hecker's YouTube channel".
I would say most of what you mentioned have some 'chessic' component, of the top of my head, Large_pages and hashtables, compiling chess engines (stockfish), parallel debugging, Sounds for GUI etc... Moreover none of these generated 30 pages of spam that made them unbearable to those who expect chess programing discussions. As I mentioned before, there is definately a culture of pure programing discussions here, but that doesn't make it right. Striclty speaking most are off-topic, because the focus in game programing is writing programs to play that game using any programing language, not studying the language itself. For my programing questions, I usually go to appropriate forums where I could get the best answers. There this strcpy() discussion will not even get new posts because it will be deemed duplicate with exisiting discussion, so you either take it or leave it. No one is going to nurse your ego.
I would say it is wrong if a thread starts out chess related and then completely diverges into attacks based on religious views against e.g. the choice of programming language. But this thread (or rather, the original thread, I do agree there was little reason to spawn this 2nd thread on the same topic), has been from the start about "undefined behavior" and what that means for (chess) programmers.
My opinion is that there is just way too many programers here, who equate chess_programing=programing and take every opportunity here even strcpy(), to discuss about programing languages, operating systems, C++ quirks
etc. Such things when discussed in the appropriate forums probably does not lead to more than a page of discussion, so most of them end up being very pretentious, i.e. in the absences of credible experts. In other scientific programing discussions I know of, the programing language is not an issue. You are expected to know how you are going to program with any programing language you desire, so the discussions are mostly algorithmic about the problem at hand. Programing languages are just tools that anyone can learn by himself to the level he desired. No need to forcefully feed members of a non-relevant community about your wizardly programing skills, who knows you may be just an average programmer in the appropriate forum.
, only problem is it is in the wrong forum. I don't know the right technical word for it, but it is "a case of feeling pumped up in a forum you think you will get away with anything, well mainly because it isn't the right forum". Very much like bragging about your soccer skills to a bunch of volley ball players, very pretentious. I am sure this useless strcpy() discussion would have ended very quickly if it was asked in stackoverflow.