[ruby-talk:01590] Re: RFD: comp.lang.ruby

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Nicholas Carey <[e-mail]> wrote in message
news:896qkh$[e-mail]...
> "piranha" <[e-mail]> wrote...
>
> > no need to squat.  comp.lang.misc is there for you.  use
> > the tag [ruby] so all you ruby users can find each other
> > easily, and post away.  this is a pretty useful way to
> > establish traffic on usenet, and IMO better than creating
> > a new alt.* group, because an established big-8 group has
> > already good propagation.  it'll provide threading, and
> > you might garner additional ruby enthusiasts to boot.
>
> FWIW, Larry Wall avoided/opposed creation of comp.lang.perl
> for a long time for just that reason -- he *wanted* discussion
> to take place in other fora as a method of garnering interest
> in perl. Someone asks "What the best way to do <foo>?" in
> comp.unix.shell or comp.lang.misc and someone else replies
> "Well...in perl, I just use this one-liner to do <foo>...".
>
> People generally know a good tools when they see them. If
> it's a tool that makes solving people's problems easier/
> simpler/cleaner than other tools, you'll probably garner
> converts. That's how Larry Wall did it with perl. If ruby
> is a good tool...it should work for you too.

FWIW++, things often succeed for reasons unrelated to the proclaimed
theoretic rationale (or rationalization).

Moreover, in this case, I have no idea if the cited reason was Larry Wall's
only reason or even his primary reason in this regard (or even whether it
was said half in jest in the off-hand manner that Wall is a master at,
although for purposes of discussion here, I'll provisionally take it at face
value).

Finally--and most importantly--for all I know (and what I presently consider
to be the most likely case), Wall's policy quite possibly _slowed_ the
spread of Perl.

Now this doesn't mean that Wall's theory isn't important and interesting and
worthy of serious consideration--all of which I grant--but only that I don't
presently have any idea of how to reasonably evaluate Wall's theory in any
(even extremely loose and extremely approximate) objective sense.

However, what I think is the most interesting thing about your post is that
it suggests (to me, at least) that very judicious cross-posting between
comp.<whatever> and comp.lang.ruby _might_ be a good thing to encourage
(following the general pattern in your post's quoted examples), given the
prior existence of comp.lang.ruby.

Conrad