Re: [MacPerl] We're all Macperlers on this bus...

[online@mactech.com (Jeff at MacTech)]

I must say that I agree with every syllable that Vicki has said, and it
pretty thoroughly reflects things I've been thinking lately. Just a few
thoughts:

[quotations to be provided without attribution to minimize clutter]
>My guess is that by restructuring the criteria for postings to
>(Mac)Perl-related rather than Mac(Perl)-specific we could win a lot
>without losing too much.  We spend as much time telling people their
>questions aren't germaine as we might answering them!

I agree. The key problem I see is, as other have said, when you are faced
with a script which doesn't behave as expected, you might not know if the
problem is your understanding of Perl, an idiosyncrasy with the Mac
implementation, a bug in the Mac version, or a bug in the core. And, even
if it is "core" rather than Mac, this could still be on-topic because: it
isn't in the MacPerl Book but maybe should be, it's there but isn't clear,
or it's there but isn't in the index. Usually, you don't know which
category your question falls under until you know the answer.

The corollary to this is that if you do need to look elsewhere, it's on
comp.lang.perl.misc, which is quite hostile in tone, and very unfriendly
to beginners. This just isn't a place I would recommend to anyone, even to
lurk--at least if you are bothered by people being wantonly cruel to one
another. (Sorry--I had to comment....)

So, I'd be all for expanding the scope of this list. If the volume becomes
overpowering, we could consider splitting it up then, but I think it might
be a good idea to not worry over it prematurely. I think "mac-perl-www for
CGIs, HTML processing & so on" is a good idea; I worry that the
mac-perl-toolbox v. mac-perl-bugs v. mac-perl distinction might be vague
enough to promote cross-posting (or confusion) and defeat its own purpose.
And I also doubt that we have to worry much about non-Mac people posting
hugely off-topic things--just having "Mac" in the name of the list will
scare off 99% of them.

>I get about 80 unsubscriptions every month; I don't count how many of
>those move to -announce, change addresses, or drop out altogether, but I
>consider the turnover fairly high.

I wonder if the turnover is due to displeasure with the list, or just lack
of time to read everything (or lack of time to program). Also, I
unsubscribed because my local usenet feed is subscribed, so I can read the
list as though it were a newsgroup. Is the running total fairly constant?

>For me, this is the direction to be taken.
>And I suggest that people like Chris, Matthias, Paul and others don't
>have to feel compelled to answer every RTFM-question that comes up. I
>answered a couple of these questions off the list in the past, in an
>effort to reduce tensions. We need these people to deal with the real 
>hard stuff.

>  *  A novice MacPerl user should have a more "polite" place to
>     hang out than c.l.p.m.  Sure, they should be told to look
>     in the MacPerl book, PODs, etc., but *nicely*.  And, if a
>     new (or old :-) MacPerl user occasionally asks a question
>     that isn't specific to MacPerl, that's OK.


I think this is how things should work. If people ask FAQs occassionally,
then hey, that's life, it won't kill us--they're FAQs because they are,
well, frequently asked. For my part, I answer questions to help people
out--I don't much care the "level" of the question. And if I can answer it
by pointing them to a URL or a FAQ, then great. If I don't have time to
answer it, then that's fine too, maybe someone else will. But it bums me
out when someone stomps on someone else just for asking a question--it
just promotes bad feelings and flame wars and divides the community, and
wastes bandwidth far more than the original question. (Not that this
happens much on this list, but on c.l.p.m, oh my....) As Vicki pointed
out, as the volume of Perl documentation grows, so does the difficulty of
locating any particular perl of wisdom....

(On a side note, I'd like to point out that most questions you'd be
tempted to ask here, as well as many others, would be warmly received in
the comp.sys.mac.programmer.help newsgroup, although they are less likely
to be answered due to the smaller number of Perl experts there. I'm not
recommending that eveyone move over there, just if you have a question and
you're afraid it's off-topic on the MacPerl list you can try there, and
you are unlikely to be flamed for it.)

Anyway, just my several cents.
-- 
__________________________________________________________________________

Jeff Clites                Online Editor           http://www.MacTech.com/
online@MacTech.com         MacTech Magazine
__________________________________________________________________________

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