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Re^2: What exactly counts as "Perl News"?

by mr_mischief (Monsignor)
on Oct 14, 2010 at 02:14 UTC ( [id://865188]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re: What exactly counts as "Perl News"?
in thread What exactly counts as "Perl News"?

Thanks for the link on the assumption I've never heard of Don Quixote at all. That's hilarious. I guess you think I've never read any books at all? Please continue to link to the most common allusions. It shows your arrogance quite nicely.

Of the last 15 nodes which is one page, there are things that concern me. Pity I might be concerned about something you consider insignificant or imagined, like one third of the most recent page being the type of thing I'm talking about. Yet that is life, and I will go into examples just for you since you so like tedious and pedantic references.

Now, for the issues I see. Five of them (consecutively) are project release notices without much info beyond that something has been released. They don't mention other alternatives, the rationale for the projects, the pros and cons of the project, the central ideas held or interesting choices made during development, or anything else. One third of the most recent page may denote a young trend, I think.

BTW, five out of fifteen is one third. One third of the most recent page is just this sort of announcement. I just assumed you'd need to be told where I'm getting the one-third number, so there's your reference. :-/

One of those projects is about a new web-based game, which I guess is interesting here simply because of the mistaken impression people outside the community have that new large projects don't get done in Perl. It's not apparent the poster was on the development team, and kind of implies the opposite, so I wouldn't expect a lot of the background information in the post. It does give the information that it's new, it's done in Perl, and where to find it. That's not too bad. It even links to a technical document, but that's a 43 megabyte PDF file with no quick rundown alternative.

One is clearly by SFLEX AKA Shaka_Flex AKA $h4X4_|=73}{ continuing a flame-riddled thread that was originally under Meditations before he left (asked for his account to be disabled) claiming he'd never be back before coming back as an AC and then as Shaka_Flex (account disabled), and now as $h4X4_|=73}{ instead. At least there is some listing of additions and improvements from earlier versions, but I can't bring myself to care under the circumstances.

mshipper does mention one other module and the target audience for the module being announced. That's not too bad, but it could be better. It feels like a rushed announcement to me, but it is a decent seed for feedback.

One is an announcement of a particular person's first Perl6 program. Okay, that's cool. It's a Cool Use For Perl, and might call for some Meditations. It seems more of a personal journal entry to me than news for the community, but if everyone else in the community cares about the first program each of us writes in Perl5, Perl6, PASM, with Moose, using List::Utils, or whatever dialect of the language I'll be entirely supportive of a section for just that.

One is about an application to manage database backups with PostgreSQL with no discussion at all about previous solutions or telling any requirements. It's just a "please use this code I dumped somewhere and give me feedback" request with no rationale for why someone would find it useful in their own workflow. It's just a typical, "test it for me" blurb linked to the CPAN entry for the application and its sparse but perhaps adequate documentation.

So, if five in a row of the last 15 posts to the section isn't indicative of a trend towards small blurbs of project release announcements, I'm not sure what a trend is.

For a counter example of a good notice of a project release in the same section, note the detail in the PDL announcement, the KinoSearch announcement a few pages back, the DBD::Sybase announcements, or any of the Perl 5 or Rakudo announcements. Here are some examples of things these good project announcements include:

  • who is the targeted audience for the version
  • links to instructions for installation and configuration of the project when it is a potentially complex task
  • lists of important changes or references to where to find those
  • digests of the files you are to download to use the projects
  • lists of remaining shortcomings of the project that are still being targeted for future work
  • where to find more information

By your reasoning that since it is a low-traffic section of the site that any post is okay, we need to stop reaping the spam cheap prescription drug offers. They aren't scrolling the forum much, so who cares?

So, not all the poor examples are entirely awful, and not all the good examples are perfect. Still, I think that a post to the news section should be somewhat more thorough and well-thought than "U can haz My::Module 0.02!". (That is in "lolspeak" BTW, in case you needed a link to the reference.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^3: What exactly counts as "Perl News"?
by Argel (Prior) on Oct 14, 2010 at 23:49 UTC
    You probably should have hopped on over to that Wikipedia article (emphasis added):
    Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means attacking imaginary enemies, or fighting unwinnable or futile battles.

    Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks

      Knew that one, too, thanks. I'm not quite sure though how stating that the low number of posts has to do with making it a futile battle more so than an imaginary enemy, since the light traffic was the point you mated to the allusion. You're still quite arrogant about it, though, I see.
        Been out a week, so sorry for jumping back into this so late....

        The lack of traffic is likely to either be treated as a bigger concern than than the one you raised or trivialize your concern. That is, either "we don't want to discourage people from posting" or "there's so little traffic it's not worth caring about". And maybe some other similar interpretations. But the end result is the same -- no significant change to Perl News, which is exactly what happened. Which is why you were tilting at windmills.

        Regarding "arrogance", my intent was to avoid the "crotchety" issue. Based on my lack of success on that front, I was apparently titling at windmills as well....

        Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks

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