Is this question a good match for this site?

Question

I've had a question migrated here but I don't think its a good fit for programmers. If I understand the nature of the questions you get.

How can you make a cluster run a task only once?

Should this have been migrated here?

Edit 1

I tried asking this on meta.stackoverflow.com but to no real avail. Is this question a good match for programmers.stackexchange.com site?

Answer 1

From the looks of your question, you're trying to determine how best to tackle a problem given a site of requirements. That is, it's a conceptual, writeboarding-type question rather than a problem with code.

Conceptual questions are on-topic here and off-topic on Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow is when you have already started implementation, and you've run into a problem in your source code.

So it was rightly migrated here, at least in terms of scope of Programmers.SE and Stack Overflow. The question is, however, awfully specific and reads like a request for a proposal rather than a question asking for help: I doubt you'll get good answers anywhere as the question, with all of its requirements and restrictions, likely isn't all that relevant to anyone but yourself.

I've opted not to close it as too localized as it looks like someone was able to figure out a general solution, but you might want to figure out what you can do to generalize the question to make it more interesting for other programmers.

Answer 2

Just because a question is not valid on Stack Overflow doesn't automatically mean it is suited to Programmers (i.e. a question can be off-topic for both Stack Overflow and Programmers - or every Stack Exchange site). You'd get the response you're looking for by asking this question on http://meta.stackoverflow.com

Anyway, I don't this the question is constructive (regarding the Programmers FAQ).

Answer 3

Questions on StackOverflow should contain, as quoted by their faq:

• a specific programming problem
• a software algorithm
• software tools commonly used by programmers
• matters that are unique to the programming profession

I'm pretty sure that your question involved a programming problem that you were having, and it involved a good amount of source code and was specific, and it's my personal belief that it leaned more on the objective side (Stack Overflow) than the subjective side (Programmers).

However, your question did contain terms that made it somewhat subjective, such as

• The "If you had..." that you started the question out with. This makes it seem hypothetical and open to many different opinionated answers.
• "...the best way of achieving this?" makes it subjective and opinionated. If you ask this on Stack Overflow, it makes it more likely to get migrated.

I'm still not entirely sure why it was migrated, but to me it seems like you put it on the correct site. I may regret saying this later, but if I were you, I would remove the original question and repost a new, revised question that leaves out the subjective parts such as those that I have listed and making it appear as subjective as possible. This will make it more likely to be accepted on Stack Overflow. Good luck and sorry about the inconvenience!