[JaxPM]

[j proctor]

On the Jax.PM jacksonville-pm-list;
j proctor <jproctor at oit.umass.edu> wrote -



Welcome to the list, Tim, and whoever else just joined.


>>> Not really.  Everyone is listening to everyone else (sort of like
>>> SETI) and no one wants to be the first to speak.

Oh, I'd say we definitely fail SETI's tests.  Remember, they require a
regularly duplicable signal in the same location.  Two of the most
frequent posters on this list aren't even in Florida.  :)


>> Last week I kind of felt out the group by asking a nuber of questions
>> that might have gotten me flamed on certain lists (read: metioned
>> Windoze), and I was pleasently surprised at the response.
>>
>> I got a number of intelligent and helpful replies, and no one told me
>> not to post the things I had posted.
> 
> That is sort of the point of local groups - to prevent BS from swamping the
> usenet groups and thus prevent flamewars, which are BS anyways...

Well, not all lists are like that all the time.  In my experience this
past spring, the New York list (the original, actually, for those of you
who aren't up on your PM history) was not friendly to non-expert type
questions.  It was curious, though, in that it wasn't like an elitism
based on technical skill (there were acknowledged newbies on the list) or
something like UNIX vs. Windows, it was simply that they consider
themselves primarily a social group, so their list simply wasn't (isn't)
the proper forum for technical questions.  I enjoy this list and the
others like it that allow anything (except flames, spam, and blatant job
recruitment efforts).  I unsubscribed from NY.pm in June.


>> If we don't really have a protocol established on the list, I'd like to
>> propose one now.

No!  No one's allowed to do anything like that without administrative
approval!  Fill out this form in triplicate (do not fold, spindle, staple,
or mutilate), sign in the presence of a notary (affix seal below), and
mail in an envelope to...

[insert record-scratching noise]

Yeah, whatever.  I agree with Bill--people are going to post whatever
Perl-like subject is of interest to them at the time.  Sometimes it'll be
amusing, more often I suspect it'll be a question related to a problem at
hand.  Even those of us who are more experienced with Perl sometimes miss
something obvious that fresh eyes can spot.


> I think mostly I am talking to myself, so ...

And this is different from normal how?  :)

(No offence, Bill.  I probably shouldn't tease someone so much that I
haven't ever actually met, but you're a convenient twelve or thirteen
hundred miles away, and a ready target.)

 
>> I'd particulary like to see some experts discuss the approach/design
>> issues.

This does sound interesting, even as one of the folks that would probably
get lumped into the "expert" category (at least on this list).  It's
difficult to describe how I know which approach I want to take when
solving a new problem.  There is a definite art to programming (probably
more so than science, although that doesn't stop schools from churning out
CS majors to become programmers).  I'm certainly not above discussing my
art, as well as learning about the techniques of others.

But, did you have any examples in mind?  Post a problem and see how a
couple of us respond to it?  We tried that, didn't we, with only a couple
fewer listmembers?  As strange as it is to try to put words to how I know
I'll want a particular data structure later on in my code, it's even
weirder to think about some general rules for "What to Think about When
You Have to Write a Perl Program".  Talk to us, Nate.  

Okay, that's enough rambling from me.


j

P.S.  I got "mail in an envelope to" from the change of address form on
the web site of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.  I just
moved, and I was really hoping to mail my change of address form in a beat
up old shoebox (since I haven't found and unpacked the envelopes yet).



The Jacksonville Perl Monger's Group is operated by -
Bill -Sneex- Jones ( sneex at usa.net ),
to whom send all praises, complaints, or comments...