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From: piet@cs.ruu.nl (Piet van Oostrum)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Structuring this newsgroup
Message-ID: <1563@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl>
Date: 11 Sep 89 13:34:21 GMT
References: <4615@eos.UUCP> <14866@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <247@seti.inria.fr> <1463@hcx1.UUCP> <1559@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl> <840@madnix.UUCP>
Sender: news@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl
Reply-To: piet@cs.ruu.nl (Piet van Oostrum)
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, University of Utrecht, Holland
Lines: 26
In-reply-to: schaut@madnix.UUCP (Rick Schaut)

In article <840@madnix.UUCP>, schaut@madnix (Rick Schaut) writes:
 `And if you were a beginner and had a question, would you ask other
 `beginners or the 'wizards'? 

				     Can't you people grow up and remember
 `that you were once beginners at C as well?

That is NOT the problem. The ``beginners'' or ``wizards'' do not qualify
the people that are reading or writing the newsgroup, but the kind of
subjects that are treated there. After all, separating subjects is just what
the whole newsgroup idea is about. Maybe the names were chosen badly. I
suggested ``wizard'' by analogy to the ``comp.sys.unix groups''.

On the other hand, people complain that too many beginners questions do
make the group less useful for people that have questions about intricate
problems. Of course it will never be possible to draw a clear border line.

Also I think there are too many questions arising again and again, that
should be answered by getting an introductory course, or studying a good
textbook. Like the ever and ever recurring questions about NULL and 0 and
pointers to address 0.
-- 
Piet van Oostrum, Dept of Computer Science, University of Utrecht
Padualaan 14, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands
Telephone: +31-30-531806        Telefax: +31-30-513791
Internet: piet@cs.ruu.nl        Uucp: mcvax!hp4nl!ruuinf!piet