From: Brennan Leathers <digibren@...>
Date: 2003-01-09T08:51:19+09:00
Subject: Re: The Year in Scripting Languages (Final Draft)

yes, sorry. I knew I should have even as I posted but since it was so 
long in my mind compared to 3 grafs, I just let it go. but here are 
some:

- trim the URL section. IMO only links for the main site, Carrera & 
Pine tutes, ruby-talk, and the online pickaxe are needed. all the rest 
should go on a wiki or ruby-lang page somewhere and that can be linked 
to.

- include a section header / description for every new paragraph. in 
particular, ruby development section, it's too hard to separate ideas 
if you're just skimming.

- mention book publications, but magazine articles don't need to be 
mentioned. these are at the website and easy to find. unless you're 
going to link to their online forms (which just adds length and I dont 
recommend), it doesn't serve any purpose since I'm sure most of the 
languages save Lua had articles in the same or similar publications.

- cut the mailing list paragraph. include the link to the ruby-lang 
page for the ML, but that's it. the rest can be found at the site if 
ppl are interested beyond the article. no one outside the community 
cares that we have lists beyond general discussion, every language has 
those.

- cut the ruby garden graf altogether, or at least to one brief 
sentence. link yes, then maybe say it is a unique collaborative 
homepage for all things ruby.

- trim the ruby graf to saying, ok there was a conference, here were 
the 3 major presentations, include the link. otherwise it's not 
interesting to external readers.

- IMO, calls for documentation are done inside the community. why would 
someone from perl community who has only marginally heard/used ruby 
want to document it? even within the community, documentation is 
usually a self-initiated process.

ok those are my major issues. I still think ruby development section is 
too wordy tho it's pretty concise as is. maybe just choose the really 
important stuff, even if it hurts to cut something. I like the grafs 
the size of Martin's capsules on the wiki. those seemed just right. 
even if the section stayed the same length but was broken up into grafs 
that size, that would be an improvement b/c skimmers could decide 
easier what was of interest to them personally.

you did a good job, I am not complaining about the overall effort. :) I 
just don't want to bore anyone outside of the community. we should 
provoke interest with major features/projects/developments in the 
email, not lay out the history of the past year in great detail.
for example, just say the windows version is now native, no need to 
list the compiler business. there are a couple other things like that, 
too, if you have time to be laser-like in editing.

brennan



On Wednesday, January 8, 2003, at 06:09  PM, Lyle Johnson wrote:

> Brennan Leathers wrote:
>
>> supposed to be 3 paragraphs. still way too long.
>
> Mitchell sent e-mail to the coordinators with the rough drafts from 
> Lua, Tcl and Perl; all of them were longer than three paragraphs as 
> well ;) But if you have any concrete suggestions about where to trim 
> the fat, now is the time to make them.
>