[Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Alex Queiroz wrote: > On 7/16/07, Malcolm Wallace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> OK, so I'm not genuinely suggesting that you must possess or be studying >> for a PhD, to grok Haskell. But I find nothing alarming about the >> suggestion that one needs a fairly high level of intelligence, and some >> training, in order to be able to use Haskell effectively. > > What I'm saying is that almost every topic in Haskell Café evolves > into a very high level discussion that may frighten some beginners, > as it seems that without a PhD in programming languages and category > theory, the language is not for you. read . takeWhile (not . frightening) ;) Personally, I perceive Haskell as being easier than every other programming language. In other words, if Haskell requires a PhD, Visual Basic requires a Nobel Prize. How the heck do imperative programmers produce working code and how are they able to read the resulting mess afterwards? I just don't get it :) To be serious, those frightening things are often very simple concepts but will remain frightening if not explained well. My experience is that wikis, blog posts and online tutorials can't replace a textbook-quality, well, textbook. Unless the online materials are textbook-quality as well, of course. Really, the best way to learn Haskell (and most other things) is to read/buy/borrow a textbook. This also applies to the mailing list and the "cache of answers" for optimization volume. One example is the "hGetContents - hClose" question. I think that most people encountering this problem won't realize on the first try that hGetContents is the culprit. But how to formulate a good search query then? In the end, I think that the best way to avoid trouble with hGetContents is to be introduced to it in a textbook chapter "IO and Files". Regards, apfelmus PS: hGetContents-hClose is particularly strange since you need operational semantics of lazy evaluation to understand it. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Chris Smith wrote: Well, it doesn't have to "go over" anywhere. I'm reading and posting just fine with NNTP right now. It works great. How'd you manage that? I found out I could do so by reading this thread. Until then, I'd avoided haskell-cafe, hanging out mostly on IRC for the last few months because I didn't want the high volume of email. I've been avoiding it for over a year for the same reason. (And because I didn't want people to have my real email address, but never mind...) Actually, since this is the first time I've tried to seriously use Thundrebird for email, I'm surprised at how buggy it is... ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
[Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
ok <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I was very happy to discover Haskell-Café and would be sorry to lose > it, as I would if it went over to NNTP. Well, it doesn't have to "go over" anywhere. I'm reading and posting just fine with NNTP right now. It works great. I found out I could do so by reading this thread. Until then, I'd avoided haskell-cafe, hanging out mostly on IRC for the last few months because I didn't want the high volume of email. -- Chris Smith ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
On 7/13/07, Philippa Cowderoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: This is a cultural thing, and assuming that it's a lack of sophistication on our part is a bad idea - on the contrary, some of the better reasons to avoid a web-based board are entirely about enabling sophistication. There's a very simple argument for using a bulletin-board: bulletin boards are the lazy solution. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Stefan O'Rear wrote: On Fri, Jul 13, 2007 at 08:23:41PM +0100, Andrew Coppin wrote: Whenever I find that something isn't on the Wiki, I try to add it. (E.g., the articles on alpha/beta/eta reduction.) On the other hand, when I find something isn't there, it's usually because I'm trying to look it up because I don't understand it. ;-) To some extend, incorrect information can be worse than no information... :-( Conversely, it's generally easier for us to fix an incorrect page than to write a new one from scratch. ...hence my usual tacktic of adding the page and putting in the comments "somebody should probably check this..." Sometimes it works. ;-) (It worked for the beta and eta articles - somebody quickly pointed out that I actually got the names the wrong way round! Oops... On the other hand, I updated the Existential Type article, and apparently nobody noticed that one of my examples don't actually compile due to gratuetusly invalid syntax.) ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
[Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Andrew Coppin wrote: > Dave Bayer wrote: >> Malcolm Wallace cs.york.ac.uk> writes: >> >>> Yes, the sheer volume of posts is definitely becoming a problem (for me, >>> at least). >>> >> >> As a newcomer I was stunned that this otherwise very sophisticated >> community was >> using an email list rather than a bulletin board. The shear torrent of >> email was >> impacting my mail program performance. >> > > Seconded. (I also commented on it at the time, and was told "use IRC or > SMTP". Personally I'd prefer NNTP, but apparently I'm a minority here...) What are you on about? Use gmane.org... -- Bardur Arantsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Nuke unborn gay whales for Jebus! "Most Broadly Offensive Slogan Ever" ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
On Fri, Jul 13, 2007 at 08:23:41PM +0100, Andrew Coppin wrote: > Dave Bayer wrote: >> Here, the Wiki is fantastic but extraordinarily spotty (any healthy wiki >> will >> always have much new growth, but the current gaps are surprising), and >> newcomers >> like myself can and have been contributing to it. >> > > Whenever I find that something isn't on the Wiki, I try to add it. (E.g., > the articles on alpha/beta/eta reduction.) > > On the other hand, when I find something isn't there, it's usually because > I'm trying to look it up because I don't understand it. ;-) To some extend, > incorrect information can be worse than no information... :-( Conversely, it's generally easier for us to fix an incorrect page than to write a new one from scratch. Stefan signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Dave Bayer wrote: Claus Reinke talk21.com> writes: will ultimately make its contents easier to find. but if you want to avoid answering questions again and again on the list, you need to improve the cache of answers. Bingo. Here, the Wiki is fantastic but extraordinarily spotty (any healthy wiki will always have much new growth, but the current gaps are surprising), and newcomers like myself can and have been contributing to it. Whenever I find that something isn't on the Wiki, I try to add it. (E.g., the articles on alpha/beta/eta reduction.) On the other hand, when I find something isn't there, it's usually because I'm trying to look it up because I don't understand it. ;-) To some extend, incorrect information can be worse than no information... :-( ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
On Fri, Jul 13, 2007 at 08:13:31PM +0100, Andrew Coppin wrote: > Jules Bean wrote: >> I find it incredibly surprising whenever I discover than an otherwise >> sophisticated community has adopted a bulletin board rather than email ;) > > Erm... why? > >> Conversely, a bulletin board cannot be read offline, traps users into a >> single UI (in every case I've used, slow, ugly, and lacking in >> functionality) over which they have no control. > > Oh... I suppose. > > Still, a newsreader doesn't appear to have those limitations. I'd like to add that I simply don't have a powerful enough computer to run the bloatware browsers that most web-apps seem to require. So if you move to a pure web forum system, you lose me as well as Aaron. >> Modern email programs have sophisticated sorting, filtering, scoring, >> processes and they allow me to read messages while offline, search them >> locally, etc etc. They have customisable key bindings, they allow me to >> read all of my mailing lists in one place, they are scriptable, may >> support plugins... all of this under full user control. > > I'd just prefer not to have to wait through 100 emails a day to find the > few that interest me. With a newsreader, I can simply mark "ignore" on the > threads that don't interest me, and I'm done. Why don't you just subscribe to one of the NNTP groups that is 2-way gatewayed with haskell-cafe? I can't imagine it being that hard, and it would fix all of your problems. Stefan signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Jules Bean wrote: I find it incredibly surprising whenever I discover than an otherwise sophisticated community has adopted a bulletin board rather than email ;) Erm... why? Conversely, a bulletin board cannot be read offline, traps users into a single UI (in every case I've used, slow, ugly, and lacking in functionality) over which they have no control. Oh... I suppose. Still, a newsreader doesn't appear to have those limitations. Modern email programs have sophisticated sorting, filtering, scoring, processes and they allow me to read messages while offline, search them locally, etc etc. They have customisable key bindings, they allow me to read all of my mailing lists in one place, they are scriptable, may support plugins... all of this under full user control. I'd just prefer not to have to wait through 100 emails a day to find the few that interest me. With a newsreader, I can simply mark "ignore" on the threads that don't interest me, and I'm done. (Also, either my ISP or Thunderbird itself keeps magically "loosing" certain emails, which is rather irritating...) ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Dave Bayer wrote: Malcolm Wallace cs.york.ac.uk> writes: Yes, the sheer volume of posts is definitely becoming a problem (for me, at least). As a newcomer I was stunned that this otherwise very sophisticated community was using an email list rather than a bulletin board. The shear torrent of email was impacting my mail program performance. Seconded. (I also commented on it at the time, and was told "use IRC or SMTP". Personally I'd prefer NNTP, but apparently I'm a minority here...) ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
[Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
On 2007-07-13, brad clawsie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > - take this service off of email entirely. try a web forum system (you > may have to slum it and use php). i don't recommend nntp, that just > forces us to use gmane since very few isps provide nntp now. a web > forum would allow you to segment interest sections while retaining a > global search etc. if you use code like slash, you can just moderate > noise makers off the page. you can set up a yahoo group in ten minutes. Switching to a web forum system will kill any interest I have in following this community. I suspect I'm not alone. It's usenet done /wrong/. E-mail, the gmane web interface, and the gmane nntp interface combine into a very serviceable system, where I can choose my client, and on two of those paths, my client keeps track of what I read, rather than pushing that onto an overloaded server. The one thing that I can suggest is putting a note about "other ways of access" on the mailing list pages, and heck, on "community introduction" pages. -- Aaron Denney -><- ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
[Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Donald Bruce Stewart wrote: > What copyright do -cafe@ posts have? I'm not a lawyer but everything you write down is automatically copyrighted in most countries assuming that it meets some low requirement of "skill, originality and work". Which is likely to be the case for posts that are eligible to make it into the wiki. For mailing lists, archiving and quoting are considered fair use. Explicit permission from the author is required to put posts on the wiki since that means to license them under the Simple Permissive License. Regards, apfelmus ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
[Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Philippa Cowderoy wrote: > On Fri, 13 Jul 2007, Dave Bayer wrote: > >> As a newcomer I was stunned that this otherwise very sophisticated >> community was using an email list rather than a bulletin board. The >> shear torrent of email was impacting my mail program performance. >> > > This is a cultural thing, and assuming that it's a lack of sophistication > on our part is a bad idea - on the contrary, some of the better reasons to > avoid a web-based board are entirely about enabling sophistication. > > Boards need polling. Boards force a single user interface on everyone. > Boards don't enable local archives. Etc etc etc. With mail, you can pick a > client to suit your needs. Indeed, and if you prefer newsgroups, you can even get a newsgroup interface with gmane.org. Incidentally, I've generally found gmane.org to be one of best ways to manage volume -- like someone said: Usenet/NNTP has already solved many of the issues with high volume. -- Bardur Arantsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> DISCLAIMER: No humor intended as to not annoy the humor impaired. All speculative humor is purely in the mind of the insane reader and has no bearing on reality. Author cannot be held liable for any damages due to enjoyment (or lack thereof) of said humor. Offer void in Massachusetts and Utah. Only while supplies last. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
[Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Claus Reinke talk21.com> writes: > will ultimately make its contents easier to find. but if you > want to avoid answering questions again and again on the > list, you need to improve the cache of answers. Bingo. On less technical forums, e.g. FlyerTalk, the "do a search" equivalent to "RTFM" is rampant and people goal-tend without actually doing a test search to find out if that search might not be coming up for some reason. Others say "do a search" but demonstrate an effective keyword combination and the resulting useful resource. Here, the Wiki is fantastic but extraordinarily spotty (any healthy wiki will always have much new growth, but the current gaps are surprising), and newcomers like myself can and have been contributing to it. If somehow the surge in Haskell Cafe interest could be harnessed to feed Wiki content, that would be great. Something like "I noticed the Wiki entry for list comprehensions is just a stub, so I edited it to answer your question. Is the answer clear? Your beginner perspective is invaluable; how can it be improved?" The only way to establish such a tradition is by example. I'll start giving it a try. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
On Fri, 13 Jul 2007, Dave Bayer wrote: > As a newcomer I was stunned that this otherwise very sophisticated > community was using an email list rather than a bulletin board. The > shear torrent of email was impacting my mail program performance. > This is a cultural thing, and assuming that it's a lack of sophistication on our part is a bad idea - on the contrary, some of the better reasons to avoid a web-based board are entirely about enabling sophistication. Boards need polling. Boards force a single user interface on everyone. Boards don't enable local archives. Etc etc etc. With mail, you can pick a client to suit your needs. > A bulletin board has the capabibility to evolve, e.g. into multiple > entry points. > So does a mailing list when you own the domain it's hosted on. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire. Most of the time you just get burnt worse though. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
[Haskell-cafe] RE: Maintaining the community
Simon Peyton-Jones wrote: > > [...] > We need at least one forum in which it's acceptable to ask anything, no > matter how naive, and get polite replies. (RTFM isn't polite; but "The > answer is supposed to be documented here (\url); let us know if that > doesn't answer your qn" is fine.) I'd be sorry to lose that. > I fully agree and I don't mean RTFM literally. "The answer is supposed to be documented here (\url)..." is a very acceptable form of it...one can be brisk without being rude and I'm always grateful when someone points me in the direction of the right "manual" - if it's currently beyond my ken and I need to read something else first then that's my problem. I'm not going to waste your time by expecting you to read it for me and give quick answers to deep questions. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Maintaining-the-community-tf4071917.html#a11577502 Sent from the Haskell - Haskell-Cafe mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Dave Bayer wrote: Malcolm Wallace cs.york.ac.uk> writes: Yes, the sheer volume of posts is definitely becoming a problem (for me, at least). As a newcomer I was stunned that this otherwise very sophisticated community was using an email list rather than a bulletin board. The shear torrent of email was impacting my mail program performance. I find it incredibly surprising whenever I discover than an otherwise sophisticated community has adopted a bulletin board rather than email ;) Then I chased somes repies leading to earlier threads, and found bulletin-board stye access to our list at http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/ I much prefer this access, even if I wish the window spit vertically rather than horizontally. A bulletin board has the capabibility to evolve, e.g. into multiple entry points. Conversely, a bulletin board cannot be read offline, traps users into a single UI (in every case I've used, slow, ugly, and lacking in functionality) over which they have no control. Modern email programs have sophisticated sorting, filtering, scoring, processes (not just the MUA, but other programs during the delivery chain of my emails score them and sort them); and they allow me to read messages while offline, search them locally, etc etc. They have customisable key bindings, they allow me to read all of my mailing lists in one place, they are scriptable, may support plugins... all of this under full user control. Of course, having a bulletin board interface available for those who prefer it is a very nice thing. Jules ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
[Haskell-cafe] Re: Maintaining the community
Malcolm Wallace cs.york.ac.uk> writes: > Yes, the sheer volume of posts is definitely becoming a problem (for me, > at least). As a newcomer I was stunned that this otherwise very sophisticated community was using an email list rather than a bulletin board. The shear torrent of email was impacting my mail program performance. Then I chased somes repies leading to earlier threads, and found bulletin-board stye access to our list at http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/ I much prefer this access, even if I wish the window spit vertically rather than horizontally. A bulletin board has the capabibility to evolve, e.g. into multiple entry points. Are there statistics on who reads which way? Posting stats should be obvious with a little script, for anyone who still has a hoard of messagess at homne. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
