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draven
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A scripting conference
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May 22 22:16 UTC 1996 |
I haven't heard much about conference creation on Grex, save for some
second-hand stuff mentioned on M-Net, so forgive me as I wing it...
I currently fairwitness the Scripting conference on M-Net. While some
modifications have been made to its structure, it has generally worked
quite well. I have noticed quite a few script writers on here, too, and
was wondering if there would be interest in starting a Scripting
conference here, too.
The structure of this conference is unlike most. Nearly all of the items
can be grouped into one of three types:
* Guides and examples - This accounts for the bulk of the conference.
They start with fundamental concepts, such as variables and quoting,
and steadily advance from there. Each new topic is accompanied by sample
scripts.
* Advanced topics - Even the best script writers are still learning.
These items explore areas the Guides and examples won't reach for a LONG
time, if ever. Things like pure awk or perl scripts, sh variable arrays,
and creating read substitutes.
* Comments and questions - While those are going on, people are naturally
welcome to post questions and announcements about scripts they're working
on, questions and comments about topics and sample scripts, and anything
else scripting related.
When this was first proposed on M-Net, it was suggested that these
items be placed in the Unix or Programming conferences. They probably
would have swallowed wither one whole, as I suspect they would do to
jellyware.
Any thoughts on this?
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| 32 responses total. |
nephi
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response 1 of 32:
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May 22 23:18 UTC 1996 |
I think that if a conference like that existed here I would read it. It
sounds like something I could use as a valuable resource.
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davel
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response 2 of 32:
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May 23 02:59 UTC 1996 |
As far as conference-creation policy: the normal procedure is to put a
suggestion (or request) in the "New conference proposals" item (#16 in this
version of coop), listen to (or ignore) any comments anyone may make, & decide
whether you're still interested after a week or so. If you are, email cfadm
& Scott (or Valerie or John as backups) will set things up.
I'd personally very much welcome the type of items you're talking about. I
see no reason that it couldn't be done in Jellyware. (One good reason for
doing it separately is that Marcus would prefer it that way, *if* he would.
(Um, Marcus?) (I think he's been busy elsewhere a lot lately, so getting
an opinion may be harder than sometimes.) But I really doubt there'd be
any problem if you just went ahead & entered items in Jellyware. Just
my $.02 ...
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srw
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response 3 of 32:
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May 23 04:15 UTC 1996 |
It would work either way. I wouldn't mind it being in Jellyware, even if
it was far more active than the programming items. I'm flexible.
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nephi
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response 4 of 32:
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May 23 06:11 UTC 1996 |
I think that conferences with few items are easier to navigate when I am
trying to find information about specific topics.
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steve
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response 5 of 32:
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May 23 13:23 UTC 1996 |
I like the idea of talking about scripts and such. I think
jellyware would be the right place to do it, since (at least to
me) it seems that it could live there quite reasonably. I'm all
for the usage of an existing conference when we can. In this case,
I think it works out.
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davel
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response 6 of 32:
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May 23 16:46 UTC 1996 |
I for one would rather not look for things in what seems an entirely natural
place, only to find out that there's some *other* conference that I should
have checked instead. Especially since people will get confused & post in
the "wrong" conference. By way of analogy: there are several bread-related
items in the cooking conference, but even if they were a *lot* more active
I'd hesitate to say they didn't belong in with other cooking-related stuff.
Again, one need not be a FW to post items, but since it does seem like this
proposal envisions a lot of related items, it would be courteous to check with
Marcus. (My guess would be that he'd have no problem with having lots & lots
of scripting items in Jellyware, but that's just a guess.)
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coyote
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response 7 of 32:
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May 24 01:50 UTC 1996 |
I'd love a scripting conf like that. I've been wondering how to write my own
scripts for a while, and I haven't been able to find anybody to help me learn.
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nephi
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response 8 of 32:
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May 24 04:03 UTC 1996 |
(I don't think it would hurt to have two conferences with some items linked
between them.)
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scg
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response 9 of 32:
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May 24 06:26 UTC 1996 |
Jelly is supposed to be a conversation for discussions of C and Unix issues,
right. Scripting sure sounds to me like a Unix issue, and therefore perfectly
fitted.
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carson
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response 10 of 32:
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May 24 08:40 UTC 1996 |
however, if Brian would like a new conference, it'll be created, verdad?
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scott
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response 11 of 32:
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May 24 10:58 UTC 1996 |
Si.
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steve
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response 12 of 32:
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May 24 13:05 UTC 1996 |
But I hope he doesn't ask. We really need to stop the spread
of conferences when possible.
In the case of scripting, it touches upon general UNIX issues
quite often. A script is just a collection of UNIX commands,
wrapped around with some controlling statements in shellspeak. The
meat of the script are usually UNIX commands, hence my reason to
keep scripting stuff in the jellyware conference.
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davel
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response 13 of 32:
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May 24 13:53 UTC 1996 |
What STeve just said. Also <sigh> what Carson & Scott said just before that.
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robh
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response 14 of 32:
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May 24 13:56 UTC 1996 |
If the Scripting conference is created, I expect most
(if not all) of the items will end up being linked to
Jellyware anyway.
I would like to see more scripting items in Jellyware,
and I'd also like to see "scripting" added as an alias
for Jellyware, if draven thinks that will help.
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scott
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response 15 of 32:
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May 24 16:11 UTC 1996 |
(Why do we need to limit the number of conferences?)
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albaugh
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response 16 of 32:
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May 24 17:41 UTC 1996 |
I don't think it's a "need" per se, but too many small, 1-track-mind
conferences is a lot for the end user to manage.
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steve
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response 17 of 32:
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May 25 03:38 UTC 1996 |
Scott, when it makes sense to make a new conference, then by all
means I hope we do so.
But, and this is an important but, there seems to be this human
trait to break conferences down in to *really* specific topics.
This is OK, except for the fact that what is talked about in
one conference might well be useful to others. So people will
have to link items across multiple confs, or miss out on them
all together.
There is a critical mass needed for a conference to succeed
in most cases. Having three speciality conferences rather than
one more general conference often doesn't work, because people
decide that they don't want to be in all three, when in fact
they might well have benefitted from all of them. This gets
into the 'social inrtia' issue of getting the word out about
the speciality conference, and all that.
Lastly, in the case of scripts, they all touch upon UNIX
issues, for any script that really does something. Scripts
are an important subset of UNIX things in general. Thus, to
me at least it makes far more sense to put scripting there,
rather than a seperate conference.
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janc
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response 18 of 32:
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May 25 04:12 UTC 1996 |
Kind of depends. Sometimes there can be virtue in focus. If there is a large
body of users who want to learn script writing together, then a special place
for discussion Unix issues from the point of view of script writers (as
opposed to system administrators, C programmers, or users) would probably be
a good thing to have. Sure, it would be in some ways redundant with the
"unix" conference, but it would still be unique in it's approach to the
subject matter, and that can be at least as important as the subject matter
itself.
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steve
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response 19 of 32:
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May 25 18:23 UTC 1996 |
You could certainly be right. I'm not sure I've ever seen it
done that way, though. The problem as I see it, is that people
tend to really fragment things. Back on M-Net about 8 - 10 years
ago, there were conferences for apple, atari, radio shack, pet
and cpm machines. None of them did really well for long. I wanted
to take the UM's CRLT:MICROS approach and make a conference that
included them all, would have had inherent cross-pollinization to
it, and would have shared info (like floppies which they all used)
that would have benefitted everyone. But very few saw the reasoning
to that, and it never flew.
Yet, these conferences were continually clammoring for more people.
I wasn't interested in RS computers per say, so I didn't join it. I
wonder what interesting things I might have learned, had I bumped into
an RS item in the micros conference, and decided to read instead of
forgetting? Thats how it worked at CRLT:MICROS--people saw things
they wouldn't have, otherwise.
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draven
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response 20 of 32:
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May 27 05:03 UTC 1996 |
A few have mentioned that there would be a number of linked items between
this and jellyware. I thought I'd note that, of the 70 items in M-Net's
scripting conference, none have been linked to the Unix or C conferences.
I mailed Marcus about placing this in jellyware. I have no idea how long
the response time will be, though.
I encourage those of you with M-Net accounts to check out the scripting
conference before making a firm decision on this.
Thanks for you input.
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jep
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response 21 of 32:
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May 28 16:47 UTC 1996 |
The scripting conference on M-Net is a good conference. There are
diverse but related items, mostly tutorials to explain various principles
of scripting. Brian posted some 30-40 items (and I haven't used the
conference for a while -- there are probably more).
I generally agree with STeve, more conferences isn't usually better.
But at some point, a new conference, even on a specific, pointed, topic,
can be useful. If there's enough activity, enough different items, a new
conference is appropriate. If Brian had stuck his scripting items into
the Unix, or programming, or whatever, conference on M-Net, they would
have overwhelmed the rest of the conference.
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davel
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response 22 of 32:
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May 29 01:09 UTC 1996 |
Um. What would "overwhelm the rest of the conference" mean in this case?
If it's merely that most of the active items reflect one area, is that bad?
Do the existing items somehow vanish, or are people somehow intimidated into
not asking about anything else? Or what? Jellyware isn't really all that
active, but it would be really nice to have all that kind of stuff in *one*
place, instead of scattered around, IMO.
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srw
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response 23 of 32:
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May 29 01:30 UTC 1996 |
I agree with that. Jellyware seems like the best place for it, to me.
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tsty
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response 24 of 32:
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May 29 07:39 UTC 1996 |
ror now, jellyware does appear to be teh place to start scripting items.
tehre is alwyas the forget command avaialble if someone shold feel
overburdened. And scripting is a 'unix' thing as it relates to grex.
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