From: Mike Stok <mike@...>
Date: 2006-05-06T00:13:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby community website / forum

On 5-May-06, at 10:47 AM, Eli Bendersky wrote:

> Coming from Perl, what I miss in Ruby the most is (surprise !) not  
> CPAN,
> but rather the community at Perlmonks (http://perlmonks.org).

[...]

> Ruby has three loosely connected community entry-points:
>
> 1) The mailing list - an old-fashioned (at least IMHO) way to
> communicate, lacking hierarchy and formatting (try following the
> discussion in one of the most recent 50+ message threads).
>
> 2) ruby-forum.com - a gateway to the mailing list, which disconnects
> from time to time. It's not a true forum, and suffers heavily from  
> being
> connected to the maillist, topics being split to "Re:" topics from  
> time
> to time, and long discussions are impossible to follow.
>
> 3) comp.lang.ruby - a mostly-nonfunctional gateway to the list,  
> which in
> itself is probably the closest Ruby has to a normal forum, since it's
> hierarchical and enjoys the excellent built-in Google search.
>
> When I have a Ruby question, I truly don't know where to ask it, so I
> ask everywhere, which may sometime annoy people (on days when the
> gateways function). I much prefer the newsgroup, but when the gateway
> doesn't work, it is much less read, so answers take a long time in
> arriving. Am I the only one with this experience ?
>
> I truly feel that a single place for the community is very important.
> Ruby has a big potential for such a community because it's a fun
> language. People who code in Ruby really enjoy coding, and enjoy
> discussing it. I just know that a more cohesive place for the  
> community
> to "meet" online would make Ruby and even more enjoyable experience.
> Surely I'm not the only one who feels this way ?

I second your opinion of Perlmonks, a fine site with a good signal to  
noise ratio.  About as good a community web site as I have seen.

Being an old fashioned guy I like a mailing list for Ruby, and my  
mail reader can do a reasonable job of pseudo-threading the posts  
when I need them.  I have pretty much given up on newsgroups these days.

Mike

-- 

Mike Stok <mike@stok.ca>
http://www.stok.ca/~mike/

The "`Stok' disclaimers" apply.