seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?
t.
seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?
maybe they're doing their Xmas shopping 
it's not strange to be busy these days, you know.
best,
UG
···
---
Uma Geller
Trans wrote:
seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?t.
*insert Monster Mash casette*
HELP VAMPIRES! OOOOOH!
In the back-channels I've heard the following reasons for why long-time readers of ruby-talk cut back:
a) signal:noise ratio too low.
b) belligerent newbies.
···
On Dec 18, 2006, at 18:50, Trans wrote:
seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?
--
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://blog.segment7.net
I LIT YOUR GEM ON FIRE!
Personally, I have cut back on reading the list lately, partly because my unborn daughter keeps threatening to emerge two months early, but also because:
* There's a lot of religious ranting going on these days.
* I see too many echoes of comp.lang.elsewhere in certain responses.
* A lot of smart people whose posts I found most interesting no longer seem to post.
I know that a lot of people are still on irc but I a) don't have the time and b) say the dumbest things when I don't get enough time to think
···
On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 02:50:51 -0000, Trans <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?
--
Ross Bamford - rosco@roscopeco.remove.co.uk
I agree with most of the reasons given but would like to add one.
I just recently posted (a month ago) what I think a most interesting topic,
(search for HalfOrder if you are interested) I have not got a single answer,
first I was disappointed than I just came to the calm solution that
(1) the topic is not interesting at all for others
and / or
(2) they do not like my style (I know its *weird* but I do not like to look
at things from one angle only and I am *willing* to pay the price)
So I piped down a little 
I am still reading the list, but I have to admit
I am missing the Bills, Jims, T's (what's your name;) Aras and even Austins
(just kidding) too.
Cheers
Robert
P.S. And of course some time goes into Smalltalk right now, see below
···
On 12/19/06, Trans <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?t.
--
"The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution
hasn't started yet. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad
defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of
incomplete ideas."
- Alan Kay
I think many people are hanging out in localized groups now, because
of the "Too Much Email" issue and also the shift in the feel of
RubyTalk due to the influx of new users.
I still see some great conversations here, but as someone who was for
a short time a RubyTalk addict, I normally only scan the list once a
day or so, and spend the rest of the time hanging on IRC channels /
mailing lists for projects i'm involved in / interested in and also
user groups. I suspect similar for other folks in the community [0]
I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily, but I can see where
you're coming from.
-greg
[0] O'Reilly Media - Technology and Business Training
···
On 12/18/06, Trans <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?
*insert Monster Mash casette*
HELP VAMPIRES! OOOOOH!
Coincidentally, Jim Weirich's onestepback.org seems to be down right now.
Can you confirm this ?
I would be scared if this were Halloween.
brrrrrrr.... chills
···
---
Uma Geller
Does that mean ruby-talk is going to go the way of the Python mailing
lists?
···
On Tue, 2006-19-12 at 16:26 +0900, Eric Hodel wrote:
In the back-channels I've heard the following reasons for why long-
time readers of ruby-talk cut back:
a) signal:noise ratio too low.
b) belligerent newbies.
--
Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter@gmail.com, mtr1966@hotpop.com
MSN: ttmrichter@hotmail.com, mtr1966@hotmail.com; YIM:
michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber:
mtr1966@jabber.cn
"Sexual organs were created for reproduction between the male element
and the female element -- and everything that deviates from that is not
acceptable from a Buddhist point of view. Between a man and man, a woman
and another woman, in the mouth, the anus, or even using a hand." --The
Dalai Lama
Eric Hodel wrote:
seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?In the back-channels I've heard the following reasons for why long-time readers of ruby-talk cut back:
a) signal:noise ratio too low.
b) belligerent newbies.
I think that it's not just newbies, but newbies asking insensible questions, normally involving excel. There's also a lot of postings along the lines of "I've written this code, can you write it better for me" which is fair enough for an interesting bit of code, but normally the response should be, without sounding rude, "read the documentation or buy a ruby book". Newbies want answers often before working out what the question should be. And I'd consider myself a newbie on the way to intermedion, but I'd never post a question like "ruby.exe doesn't work on my windows xp! tell me what to do!?", or from a couple of pages down the list "I need to save an Excel Spreadsheet with Ruby. I used the Save AND SaveAs methods..." (What is it with excel? I've got no particular problem with it, but it seems to be a magnet for the ignorant).
Jeremy
···
On Dec 18, 2006, at 18:50, Trans wrote:
Eric Hodel wrote:
seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?In the back-channels I've heard the following reasons for why long-time readers of ruby-talk cut back:
a) signal:noise ratio too low.
b) belligerent newbies.
Agreed.
I've been marking all list mail as 'read' upon arrival so there is no instant clue that there are new messages. I visually scan for certain sender names or topic words, and have some filters to catch references to a small set of keywords. Just in case.
But I don't bother trying to keep up or pitch in as I once did. I'm sure I'm missing some interesting topics, but it's too tedious to wade through "What is the best IDE?" , "What's wrong with my ajax?", "Why is my model not validating?", and "Your opinion on [foo] is teh sux."
All in all, I'd rather just focus on writing, and writing about, Ruby.
(This started way before the holidays, too, so we can't blame Santa's elves.)
···
On Dec 18, 2006, at 18:50, Trans wrote:
--
James Britt
"Simplicity of the language is not what matters, but
simplicity of use."
- Richard A. O'Keefe in squeak-dev mailing list
I think waste-of-time/bandwidth responses like this sum up a good portion of the reason.
···
On Dec 18, 2006, at 7:06 PM, Devin Mullins wrote:
Trans wrote:
seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?
t.*insert Monster Mash casette*
HELP VAMPIRES! OOOOOH!
[snip]
T's (what's your name;)
[snip]
ts = "Guy Decoux"
···
On 12/19/06, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com> wrote:
--
Simon Strandgaard
I've been reading quite a bit about these properties of online
communities lately. There's a lot of material worth looking into if you
happen to have a bit of a deeper interest, like:
Clay Shirky's "A Group is it's Own Worst Enemy"
http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
Clay Shirky's "Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software"
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_user.html
Kathy Sierra's "How to Build a User Community: Part 1"
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/12/
how_to_build_a_.html
Oh, and I'm definitely a Ruby newb myself, but I'm learning, and this
mailing-list/Usenet-newsgroup/forum has proven a fantastic learning
resource. I hope that, one way or another, that continues to be the
case.
Geoff.
···
On 2006-12-19, Eric Hodel <drbrain@segment7.net> wrote:
On Dec 18, 2006, at 18:50, Trans wrote:
seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
away?In the back-channels I've heard the following reasons for why long-
time readers of ruby-talk cut back:a) signal:noise ratio too low.
b) belligerent newbies.
Yup while whining I forgot to talk about the real reasons.
You do have a good point, and maybe I am completely off but I still think a
FAQ would get rid of some of the noise, there would be the classic themes
* IDE
* Slow or not slow
* splash and some other very Rubyesque things
* Meaning of #==, #equal? (yessss I am whining again)
* What is true and what is not?
* Receivers of messages as in x > 5
NoMethodError: undefined method `>' for nil:NilClass,
Q? But 5 is not nil, surely
* Upcoming changes or at least links
* Pitfalls like proc vs lambda
* goto Rails, without being impolite, it should be a pointer not a "get out
of here"
I do not have too much time and I do not think that I am qualified but
maybe be just starting a FAQ somebody will hit it until it is a good one ( I
know *some* stuff about Ruby after all), another idea is to include some
really useful links, like where to look first in case of certain specific
error categories and AGF, the Golden Rule for posting of course - like the
old RTFM but politically correct
Ask Google First
Just the same thoughts again.
Robert
···
On 12/19/06, Jeremy Wells <jwells@servalsystems.co.uk> wrote:
Eric Hodel wrote:
> On Dec 18, 2006, at 18:50, Trans wrote:
>
>> seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
>> the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
>> away?
>
> In the back-channels I've heard the following reasons for why
> long-time readers of ruby-talk cut back:
>
> a) signal:noise ratio too low.
> b) belligerent newbies.
>
I think that it's not just newbies, but newbies asking insensible
questions, normally involving excel. There's also a lot of postings
along the lines of "I've written this code, can you write it better for
me" which is fair enough for an interesting bit of code, but normally
the response should be, without sounding rude, "read the documentation
or buy a ruby book". Newbies want answers often before working out what
the question should be. And I'd consider myself a newbie on the way to
intermedion, but I'd never post a question like "ruby.exe doesn't work
on my windows xp! tell me what to do!?", or from a couple of pages down
the list "I need to save an Excel Spreadsheet with Ruby. I used the Save
AND SaveAs methods..." (What is it with excel? I've got no particular
problem with it, but it seems to be a magnet for the ignorant).Jeremy
--
"The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution
hasn't started yet. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad
defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of
incomplete ideas."
- Alan Kay
Yep. Luckily, not reading this list frees up time for more useful
work, like http://code.fallingsnow.net/repository/browse/rubinius/trunk
Lengthy conversations about architecture and design were fun, but
actually doing it is even better.
···
On 12/19/06, Ryan Davis <ryand-ruby@zenspider.com> wrote:
On Dec 18, 2006, at 7:06 PM, Devin Mullins wrote:
> Trans wrote:
>> seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby
>> users on
>> the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
>> away?
>> t.
>
> *insert Monster Mash casette*
>
> HELP VAMPIRES! OOOOOH!I think waste-of-time/bandwidth responses like this sum up a good
portion of the reason.
While I can understand and appreciate the reasons for this approach,
James, it does have a significant (and in my opinion bad) side-effect:
you're leaving the field to those who can't contribute as much or as
well as you can. This means that a Ruby Newbie (hah! :D) coming into
the mailing list for the first time does not see a vital community full
of knowledgeable people ready to share what they know. Instead they see
an increasingly hostile community fraught with flames and lacking
support for them. A significant fraction of these (likely the majority)
will then conclude that learning Ruby won't be worthwhile and will go
elsewhere to less productive, less useful, less fun languages. They
suffer and so does the Ruby community as a result.
As I said I understand fully your reasons for stepping out like this.
I'm just wondering if you've thought through the possible consequences.
···
On Wed, 2006-20-12 at 02:31 +0900, James Britt wrote:
Agreed.
I've been marking all list mail as 'read' upon arrival so there is no
instant clue that there are new messages. I visually scan for certain
sender names or topic words, and have some filters to catch references
to a small set of keywords. Just in case.But I don't bother trying to keep up or pitch in as I once did. I'm
sure I'm missing some interesting topics, but it's too tedious to wade
through "What is the best IDE?" , "What's wrong with my ajax?", "Why is
my model not validating?", and "Your opinion on [foo] is teh sux."All in all, I'd rather just focus on writing, and writing about, Ruby.
(This started way before the holidays, too, so we can't blame Santa's
elves.)
--
Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter@gmail.com, mtr1966@hotpop.com
MSN: ttmrichter@hotmail.com, mtr1966@hotmail.com; YIM:
michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber:
mtr1966@jabber.cn
"I would not flinch from sacrificing a million lives for India's
liberty!" --Mahatma Gandhi
I thaught T was Tom, anyway the important thing is the quality/content of
his/her posts, and that is quite high.
So coming back to all that has been said (not only by Simon and it was not
simple anyway;) I just would like to add my POV in slight favor of splitting
the ML.
The conservatives' reasons are valuable but I feel that the auto-dynamic of
the ML just pushes us there...
Cheers
Robert
···
On 12/20/06, Simon Strandgaard <neoneye@gmail.com> wrote:
On 12/19/06, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> T's (what's your name;)
[snip]ts = "Guy Decoux"
--
Simon StrandgaardBut that is not Trans, or am I confused? Anyway thx for caring Simon!
--
"The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution
hasn't started yet. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad
defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of
incomplete ideas."
- Alan Kay
Simon Strandgaard wrote:
···
On 12/19/06, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> T's (what's your name;)
[snip]
T = Trans
My real name is Tom (Thomas), but there are lot's of Toms, so I use
Trans, and T for short.
T.
thirty years, almost any description of mailing lists of any length has
mentioned flaming, the tendency of list members to forgo standards of public
decorum when attempting to communicate with some ignorant moron whose to
stupid to know how too spell and deserves to DIE, die a PAINFUL DEATH, you
PINKO SCUMBAG!!!
Note the proper usage of to and too
···
On 12/20/06, Geoff <Geoff@domain.is.invalid> wrote:
On 2006-12-19, Eric Hodel <drbrain@segment7.net> wrote:
> On Dec 18, 2006, at 18:50, Trans wrote:
>
>> seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on
>> the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration
>> away?
>
> In the back-channels I've heard the following reasons for why long-
> time readers of ruby-talk cut back:
>
> a) signal:noise ratio too low.
> b) belligerent newbies.
>I've been reading quite a bit about these properties of online
communities lately. There's a lot of material worth looking into if you
happen to have a bit of a deeper interest, like:Clay Shirky's "A Group is it's Own Worst Enemy"
http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.htmlClay Shirky's "Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software"
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_user.htmlKathy Sierra's "How to Build a User Community: Part 1"
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/12/
how_to_build_a_.htmlOh, and I'm definitely a Ruby newb myself, but I'm learning, and this
mailing-list/Usenet-newsgroup/forum has proven a fantastic learning
resource. I hope that, one way or another, that continues to be the
case.Geoff.
What a great set of links. I especially liked this part: And for roughly