spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (10/21/88)
The posting about creating groups that has gone out almost monthly for
the last year or so says that the discussion and vote are ADVISED.
There is certainly no requirement of any kind, in the sense that any
sites issuing or honoring a newgroup message will get blown off the
network. To the contrary, it simply states that any such "newgroup"
might not be honored by a significant percentage of sites....especially
if the "newgroup" isn't honored at sites in major positions of newsflow
(like uunet, att, ucbvax, etc.) or appears in my unofficial list of
newsgroups.
In the past, some groups have been created by "fiat" when conditions
demonstrated a pressing need. The requirement of a vote and discussion
serves to make sure that the name and position within the namespace are
correct, and that there is sufficient support to maintain the group.
Sometimes, events show that such things need not be demonstrated --
they are obvious as is.
So it is with the comp.sys.next group, it seems. Someone has issued a
"newgroup." The volume for such a group certainly appears to be
present, there has been little resistance voiced in news.groups, and
comp.sys.next is the obvious choice of name. Some of us (I mean to
include myself), believe that the NeXt (or however it is) controversy
is pure marketing hype (the machine is not going to be very useful for
computer science teaching or research, but English and history majors
should love it). Nonetheless, if people want to flood the net with
speculative articles about a system they haven't used, they might as
well do it in a labeled group rather than crossposted to other, less
appropriate groups. People already post megabytes of drivel (4Mb per
day average of late) on subjects that know little about, so why should
this group be different?
I am going to poll a group of major site admins to see if they intend
to keep the group. If so, I'll list it in the list of groups. If not,
I won't list it until after the current vote is completed, as per the
guidelines.
As far as comments about the backbone go, well, everyone complained
about the backbone group and its attempts to set some guiding
policies. Those complaints took their toll; Bob Webber and his ilk got
their way. The backbone is gone, as such. And until someone can come
up with a reasonably fair, sane method of resolving disputes for a
network of over 10,000 sites and 300,000 readers -- including some very
stupid and anti-social members -- you'll have to settle for this:
commentary and debate in the news.* groups, with an occasional
unilateral move that may or may not be accepted by everyone else.
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spafblenko-tom@CS.YALE.EDU (Tom Blenko) (10/22/88)
In article <5178@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> spaf@arthur.cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) writes: | |The posting about creating groups that has gone out almost monthly for |the last year or so says that the discussion and vote are ADVISED. |... |In the past, some groups have been created by "fiat" when conditions |demonstrated a pressing need. |... |So it is with the comp.sys.next group, it seems. I'm somewhat confused as to why anyone would post such a message. Is this sort of like, "We control things, we obviously don't control things, but it's OK, these things happen, we can still think we control things?" |Some of us (I mean to |include myself), believe that the NeXt (or however it is) controversy |is pure marketing hype (the machine is not going to be very useful for |computer science teaching or research, but English and history majors |should love it). Nonetheless, if people want to flood the net with |speculative articles about a system they haven't used, they might as |well do it in a labeled group rather than crossposted to other, less |appropriate groups. People already post megabytes of drivel (4Mb per |day average of late) on subjects that know little about, so why should |this group be different? Well, first thing, Jobs has twice before provided revolutionary introductions into the market place. We may realize the magnitude of the first (Apple II), we clearly don't realize the magnitude of the second yet (look at the exponential growth of Macintosh sales), and I don't think it's at all out of line to think about and discuss what the consequences of the third might be. It is, after all, current news. And while I don't think every posting has provided great insight on the subject, that discussion, among other things, has been one benefit of this group to date. I see absolutely no reason for your suggestion that this discussion is drivel. If you have an argument in favor of your view, you are welcome to present it. But insulting the people who do participate is simply rudeness on your part. Regarding the merits of the machine, two points: - I may be a minority (of one) in thinking that by far the most interesting and revolutionary aspect of this machine is its DSP/analog interface. There are just a huge number of applications for a machine that can acquire/generate analog signals, do signal processing, etc. in scientific research environments. Most of these can be done now, and a few are, but this capability is simply not available to a lot of people, and not to anyone for $6K/system. So I expect there will be many people out there who will find the ability to interface a computer for cheap to existing electronic devices a great asset, and an opportunity for lots of further innovation. - With regard to its role teaching CS, I have no reason to think that this machine has any special role. Maybe cheaper, maybe faster, maybe some advantage to be taken of the optical disk capability, but exploitation of these is not restricted to computer scientists. However, CS is a very small segment of the academic world, and probably the one whose needs have been best addressed, among all the possible segments, by products developed to date. So its ability to address CS needs is not especially irrelevant to its ability to address the academic marketplace. |I am going to poll a group of major site admins to see if they intend |to keep the group. If so, I'll list it in the list of groups. If not, |I won't list it until after the current vote is completed, as per the |guidelines. Gee, I have another idea. Why not take the weekend off, do something fun, spend some time thinking about whatever you find interesting. Then you might have something better to do than snipe at other people. |As far as comments about the backbone go, well, everyone complained |about the backbone group and its attempts to set some guiding |policies. Those complaints took their toll; Bob Webber and his ilk got |their way. The backbone is gone, as such. And until someone can come |up with a reasonably fair, sane method of resolving disputes for a |network of over 10,000 sites and 300,000 readers -- including some very |stupid and anti-social members -- you'll have to settle for this: |commentary and debate in the news.* groups, with an occasional |unilateral move that may or may not be accepted by everyone else. I haven't heard any complaints about settling for this! And I take it you're not including yourself, your remarks above notwithstanding, among the anti-social members :-) Tom