[ruby-talk:8980] Re: GULP (working title :-) related thoughts

Dave Thomas <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>David Alan Black <[e-mail]> writes:
>
> > I've been very interested particularly in the development of an
> > on-line cookbook, as well as the various archive and library ideas
> > that have been circulating recently.  And yet, when I've tried to
> > really sit down and sketch out how things might work, I've hit a kind
> > of impasse.  My latest analysis of this is that what's behind this
> > impasse is, of all things, the very power of Ruby.
>
>Great post.
>
>But turn it around. For the cookbook site, as opposed to Gulp, it's
>perfectly acceptable to have many version of things, partial snippets,
>and the like. In fact, think how valuable it would be to have all this
>discussion about Hash defaults archived, along with all the code
>snippets. People could search for 'hash default' and get not just
>working code, but an insight into the process that lead to it.

Warning.  Generating good raw material tends to be fairly
easy.  The real value added is in summarizing, filtering
and presenting it.  The various Kernel Cousins summaries
(see http://kt.linuxcare.com/) are true value added.

>Don't let the fact that many of the snippets will be trivially short
>be a deterrent. They're educational, and genuinely useful. In fact,
>sometimes the very power of Ruby can obscure a simple solution: having
>all these snippets online and indexed will be invaluable.

Agreed.  But more valuable often for those involved in
the process than those who you would most want to learn
from it.  For that I suspect you need to both have a
content generation aspect and a refinement process.  (I
note that many Wikis tend to strike a good balance here.)

>Gulp is a different story. There we're aiming for accuracy,
>completeness and authority. But we can cross that bridge when we've
>worked out exactly what we want.

You need some raw fertilizer as well.  That is sometimes
too easy to get. :-)

Cheers,
Ben
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