Re: [Haskell] Swapping parameters and type classes
Ian Lynagh wrote:
On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 03:48:06PM +0100, Andrzej Jaworski wrote:
Responding to Simon Peyton-Jones' reminder that this is a low-bandwidth list I was obscure and commited a blunder.
This one and many other threads here are started undoubtedly by experts [sorry guys:-)] and coffee brake should work for them, but on numerous occasions threads here spawn beginner type questions. So, my thinking was that it is perhaps against the tide trying to stop them. Why not to make the list Haskell a first contact general practitioner? Then creating e.g. "Announcements & Challenge" or "Announcements & ask guru" list could take the best from "Haskell" but also would make it less front line and thus more elitist, which should imply the manner by itself.
I proposed renaming haskell@ -> haskell-announce@ haskell-cafe@ -> haskell@ in http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2007-July/028719.html
I suggested the same thing at the time we created haskell-cafe, but the concensus was in favour of haskell-cafe. At the time I didn't think it would work - for a long time, the number of subscribers to both lists was almost the same - but now I have to admit I think haskell-cafe is a big win for the community. The -cafe extension gives people the confidence to post any old chatter without fear of being off-topic, and I'm sure this has helped the community to grow. Those of us who grew up with Usenet (RIP) are more at home with the foo/foo-announce split, and it's certainly quite conventional for mailing-list naming too, but on the whole I don't think doing things differently has really done us any harm and it may well have been a stroke of genius :-) Cheers, Simon
Salute Simon, hi everybody here! Ian is scientific in his observations and has a valid point. I share his objection to the Haskell list as unnecessarily misleading newcomers which, I would add, sets precedents for others to be verbose. Then, creating a Beginner list is less fortunate than creating Announcements list for obvious and not so obvious reasons. There are things in this culture however that make the decision difficoult. What stands out is that announcements gained in the Haskell list much wider connotation and by renaming it into this name explicitly might kill this overinterpretation and thus couple of interesting oservations might not find its way to an audience. Ian's numbers tell however that this benefits speakers more than the listeners;-) Haskell-Cafe though deserves respect on the same scienific ground - the share volume speeks for it! I agree with you Simon that the name Cafe created sort of spiritual component to the community which should not be underestimated. We are humans and even history of mathematics is a stream of fashion between couple of great discoveries. Cheers, -Andrzej
On 9/18/07, Simon Marlow
Ian Lynagh wrote:
I proposed renaming haskell@ -> haskell-announce@ haskell-cafe@ -> haskell@ [snip] but now I have to admit I think haskell-cafe is a big win for the community.
To me this suggests renaming "haskell@" to "haskell-announce@" while leaving "haskell-cafe@" as is. Jim
participants (3)
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Andrzej Jaworski -
Jim Apple -
Simon Marlow