[comp.lang.perl] Perl-Users Digest #552, "COPS in perl", newsgroup use

eichin@athena.mit.edu (Mark W. Eichin) (01/09/91)

|>successful. Just as things having nothing to do with the TeX language
|>per se are fair game for TeXHAX, most of the postings currently crammed
|>into comp.lang.perl would find a new home in a PUG mailing list. If and
	1) Is *anybody* other than Mr. Bernstein upset with the
plethora of examples of perl code that appear in comp.lang.perl? Perl
is not (yet) as widely coded for in C; your example of a PD clone of
Man in C is specious - the implementation in perl is the *first*
implementation of man in perl. We *need* these examples at this early
stage in the growth of the language, so people have places to start
stealing code from :-)
	2) I see this as the Perl-Users mailing list, with similar
semantics to TeXHaX. Perhaps there's some confusion about the use of a
newsgroup? perhaps it should be comp.perl? and if you care that much,
a "call for discussion" followed by a "call for votes" is the
conventional USENT method for determining these things...
	3) I've had "re-implement KUANG in perl" on my TODO list for a
while... please count me in on the COPS discussion.
				_Mark_ <eichin@athena.mit.edu>
				MIT Student Information Processing Board
				Watchmaker Computing <eichin@watch.com>

john@ontek.com (John Alan Stanley) (01/10/91)

In article <1991Jan9.015034.13077@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU> eichin@athena.mit.edu writes:
}	1) Is *anybody* other than Mr. Bernstein upset with the
}plethora of examples of perl code that appear in comp.lang.perl? 

I, for one, would be upset if the code postings stopped appearing here.
They are not large enough yet to adversely affect the readability of the
group, and are on the whole quite useful.

}	2) I see this as the Perl-Users mailing list, with similar
}semantics to TeXHaX. Perhaps there's some confusion about the use of a
}newsgroup? 

Yes, this should be a place to talk about perl, to share neat pieces of
code, and to discuss how perl is most effectively used.  Since the newsgroup
name space is essentially a way for people to find things they are interested
in reading, and is only intended to be a loose categorization rather than
an exhaustive cataloging, the question is whether the postings which are not
strictly about perl syntax and semantics are of sufficient volume to warrant
directing them to another group.  At this point in time, I feel that the 
answer is no, as the number of articles per day has rarely execeeded 20, and
this sort of volume should be easy to filter.

JAS
-- 
________________________________________________________________________________
John Alan Stanley           Ontek Corporation
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roy@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) (01/10/91)

eichin@athena.mit.edu (Mark W. Eichin) writes:

> 	1) Is *anybody* other than Mr. Bernstein upset with the
> plethora of examples of perl code that appear in comp.lang.perl?

Personally, NO!!!! I really appreciate the examples presented here, and
look forward to more.

Perl, as you said, is not the same as C. I see Perl as a friendly,
somewhat informal language. c.l.p is just the right mix of technical
discussion and working example for me, and I have learned a great deal
from it and its denizens. (thanx, Tom!) Note that I don't intend this as
a slam at C, since I use C about as often as Perl. They're just 2
different worlds.

I hope comp.lang.perl continues just as it is, code and all.
--
Roy M. Silvernail --  roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu - OR-  cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu
Department of redundancy department, or "Take the long way home...":
main(){system("perl -e '$x = 1/50; print \"Still just my \\$$x!\n\"'");}
               [new year, new .sig, same ol' cyberspace]

roy@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) (01/10/91)

brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:

> > 	2) I see this as the Perl-Users mailing list,
> 
> Ah, that explains a lot. I suggest that the mailing list be renamed
> (slowly, of course), or that a new newsgroup be formed to more
> accurately reflect what the Perl community wants to talk about.

Judging from the contents of comp.lang.perl, we're talking about what we
want to talk about right now. Yours are the only complaints I have seen,
Dan.

> I'm not proposing creating or destroying a newsgroup, so this
> discussion doesn't belong in news.groups.

You seem to want to re-direct the flow of c.l.p, though, and that's
nearly the same thing.  We _are_ the Perl community, and I (for one)
ain't complaining about what I see here. In fact, I appreciate it a lot.
If what you're after is purely technical discussion and theoretical
discourse, I suggest that the newsgroup you want does not yet exist.
Feel free to champion its creation, but please do not seek to dampen
c.l.p as it exists now.
--
Roy M. Silvernail --  roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu - OR-  cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu
Department of redundancy department, or "Take the long way home...":
main(){system("perl -e '$x = 1/50; print \"Still just my \\$$x!\n\"'");}
               [new year, new .sig, same ol' cyberspace]

allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR) (01/11/91)

As quoted from <28809:Jan902:52:4691@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> by brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein):
+---------------
| In article <1991Jan9.015034.13077@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU> eichin@athena.mit.edu writes:
| > 	1) Is *anybody* other than Mr. Bernstein upset with the
| > plethora of examples of perl code that appear in comp.lang.perl?
| 
| If not, I'll stop complaining about it. That doesn't change the fact
| that the group is misnamed given its current content.
+---------------

Fine.  So post a Call for Discussion, etc. --- don't just bitch at the
newsgroup/mailing list because you don't like its name.  There are procedures
in place for renaming newsgroups.

And move the !@#$%^&* meta-discussion to news.groups so the rest of us can get
back to what we (i.e. everyone except you) read this newsgroup for.

++Brandon
-- 
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darrylo@hpnmdla.HP.COM (Darryl Okahata) (01/11/91)

In comp.lang.perl, eichin@athena.mit.edu (Mark W. Eichin) writes:

> 	1) Is *anybody* other than Mr. Bernstein upset with the
> plethora of examples of perl code that appear in comp.lang.perl?

     I'm quite happy with comp.lang.perl as it is.

     -- Darryl Okahata
	UUCP: {hplabs!, hpcea!, hpfcla!} hpnmd!darrylo
	Internet: darrylo%hpnmd@hp-sde.sde.hp.com