With hundreds or thousands of subscribers to the REALbasic mailing
lists it's important that we all obey some simple guidelines.
General Guidelines:
-------------------
1) Stay on topic
2) Reply off-list
3) Don't post junk
4) Trim your posts
5) Use selective quoting
The NUG is a highly active mailing list - active enough without all
of the noise and distractions from off-topic posts. It is inevitable
that a thread may stray off-topic or that someone will post an off-
topic question, but you need not reply to it *on-list*. Replies to
off-topic posts should always be taken off-list.
If you wish to converse with a large number of people collectively,
use the off-topic list which you can subscribe to at: <http://
www.starionhost.net/rbofftopic.htm>.
Before replying to a post in a thread, read all of the existing
replies first. There's a good chances that someone has already
answered it. Seeing 5 replies with the same answer to the same
question over the span of hours is silly. Also, adding a simple "me
too" is rarely helpful.
The NUG is a place to ask questions, get help, and share REALbasic-
related information and resources. It is not a soap box that should
be abused. Before posting or responding to criticism and complaints
on-list, be critical of your own message and dissect its purpose and
determine whether it is of any value to the hundreds of people it
will sent to, and the amount of replies it will generate. Be
respectful of others.
When a thread is really active, it's common to see a reply post with
four or five levels of quoted text. TRIM YOUR REPLIES. Anyone reading
the thread will have already read the same text you have. In the vast
majority of cases, it is only necessary to quote the person you're
replying to, not the persons they were replying to as well. Do not
quote the list footer!
Relatedly, use selective quoting when you are replying. Please read:
http://a.ngus.net/topposting.html
On Asking Questions:
-----------------
Help others help you by helping yourself first.
1) Check the documentation
2) Ask the right question
3) Provide all of the information you can
4) Keep it succinct
We all do it, but before asking your question glance over the
language reference and see if there's anything that even resembles
what you're trying to do first. A lot of times you can simply stumble
over the answer. Remember that the IDE has the language reference
built-in. Just go to the Help menu and select "Language Reference".
If you're running into a bug or just can't get something to work
right, clearly spell out the problem, what you tried, what you expect
to happen, and the end result. Posting the applicable code isn't a
bad idea either. In fact it's a really good one. The more information
you can provide up front the better chances you have of getting your
question answered on the first reply. Being clear and thorough will
go a long way.
Not that I expect anyone to read this, but here are some guidelines
on how to get the best from a list:
"How To Ask Questions The Smart Way"
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
REALbasic Resources:
--------------------
REAL Software's Website - http://www.realsoftware.com/
The official documentation and examples are all here. If you visit
the Community page there are links to other 3rd party sites as well.
REALbasic Forums - http://forums.realsoftware.com/
Don't like mailing lists? Need to reach a wider range of people? The
forums are highly active including a mix of people who aren't on the
mailing lists and ones who are.
Mailing List Archives - http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/
lists.html
There is a huuuuuge amount of information here. Search and ye will
most likely find.
RBGarage - http://www.rbgarage.com/
The largest online listing site for REALbasic classes, examples,
programs, consultants, services, tools and more.
RBDocs - http://www.rbdocs.com/
A wiki for community-maintained documentation of REALbasic.
RBLibrary - http://www.rblibrary.com/
A growing collection of high quality pay-for tutorials.
REALbasic Developer Magazine - http://www.rbdeveloper.com/
Bimonthly print & e-magazine with columns, tips, interviews, product
reviews, news, and wonderful tutorials.
REALOPEN - http://www.realopen.org/
A gathering of open source REALbasic projects and classees.
ResExcellence.com/REALbasic - http://www.resexcellence.com/realbasic/
REALbasic-related news with over 150 tutorials and new ones posted
weekly.
Einhugur Software - http://www.einhugur.com/
A large collection of popular and useful plugins.
MonkeyBread Software - http://www.monkeybreadsoftware.info/
Home of the world's largest REALbasic plugin with over 4 controls,
500 classes, and 11,000 functions.
Freak Software - http://www.freaksw.com/development/realbasic/
Fairly large collection of REALbasic examples, classes, example
projects, old plugins, and Freaky SQL.
Charles Yeomans - http://www.declaresub.com/
E-book on using Declares in REALbasic as well as other others on
memory management, class interfaces, bindings and more.
Aaron Ballman - http://www.aaronballman.com/
A REAL Software engineer who posts a lot of REALbasic-related tips
and tricks on his blog
Jon Johnson - http://www.nilobject.com/
Another RS engineer who puts up some interesting posts using the more
advanced features of REALbasic in useful ways.
<Many others which I won't list - sorry>
If you made it all the way down here, I applaud you. If we all try to
follow these simple guidelines the list will be better for it.
Seth Willits
----------------------------------------------------------
Freak Software - http://www.freaksw.com/
ResExcellence - http://www.resexcellence.com/realbasic/
----------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode:
<http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/>
Search the archives of this list here:
<http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
