Re: [MacPerl] MPPE Mailing list

[Richard Gordon <maccgi@bellsouth.net>]

At 18:44 -0700 7/12/1999, Vicki Brown wrote:
>Now I'm beginning to wonder.  Did I ever announce this?!  I can't find a
>note on it in my archives. Could it be that I forgot to invite anyone to
>the party??

If you did, I missed it and I probably would have subscribed.

>Is such a list a good idea?

Well, yes, but...

<RANT>
Frankly, despite all of your hard work, I've yet to see the point in 
maintaining separate lists to begin with. I know that Matthias has 
the final say and wants the MacPerl list to be MacPerl-centric, but 
I'll suggest that it is counter-productive to have more than one list 
for Mac users of Perl, whether the threads deal with MacPerl or not, 
viz.:

1. Multiple signups for the various lists are a burden for users and you alike.
2. It isn't always clear which list something should go to.
3. There isn't enough collective list traffic to require separate lists.
4. Especially since BBEdit enhanced its MacPerl integration, there is 
growing interest in MacPerl. However, this is mostly with a view 
towards cgi and the hard, cold fact is that the Mac's share of the 
web server market is statistically insignificant now and dropping 
into oblivion versus a fairly reasonable presence a few years ago.
5. A swing by 
http://www.netcraft.com/Survey/Reports/199907/platform.html will 
confirm that NT is also eroding in the internet market, as it has 
been since the first of the year . For all intents and purposes, Perl 
means unix deployment, regardless of which platform you prefer to 
edit and test scripts on.
6. If you accept the proposition that while Perl can do a lot of 
things that have nothing to do with cgi, in the Mac world the 
overwhelming use of Perl is to do cgi (ultimately on unix servers), 
then it seems to me that fragmenting the list into pieces just makes 
it harder for people to learn what they actually need to know.
7. Aside from being able to investigate mac-centric issues, the main 
advantages of the MacPerl list(s) to me are 1) avoiding the yelping 
of Bill's Prisoners, 2) having the benefit of the knowledge of some 
Mac people who know a lot more about unix than I do, and 3) generally 
interacting with Mac people who are typically pretty laid back and 
less inclined to come across as  gasbags than hard-core unix people 
are.
</RANT>

So, there it is. I repeat *I appreciate your (Vicki's) efforts to 
create and maintain separate lists* but I don't see the payback. My 
jaw is set and my flamesuit is donned, so weapons free, fire at will.


Richard Gordon
--------------------
Gordon Consulting & Design
Database Design/Scripting Languages
mailto:richard@richardgordon.net
http://www.richardgordon.net
770.971.6887 (voice)
770.216.1829 (fax)

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