Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga.advocacy:3927 comp.sys.amiga.programmer:4569 comp.sys.amiga.misc:4624 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:10229 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!indetech!vsi1!zorch!xanthian From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.programmer,comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Another Amiga reorganization needed? Summary: Re: New newsgroup comp.sys.amiga.system needed Keywords: private chatter a bit longer Message-ID: <1991Jun16.014324.532@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 16 Jun 91 01:43:24 GMT References: <9072@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <1991May31.140016.14308@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 189 sutela@polaris.utu.fi (Kari Sutela) writes: > xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >> Before going public, why not chat in the Amiga >> groups for a bit about doing something about >> c.s.a.programmer, which is still _much_ too big. >> Does any clever soul see a reasonably clean >> partitioning of the current traffic? > This is not reasonable, I'll say! ;-) > but how about: > comp.sys.amiga.programmer.applications > Discussions about programmer related applications: > editors, compilers etc. Questions like: "Which > C-compiler/assembler is the best?" should go here. > Reports of bugs found in compilers should be > posted here, too (preferably, they should be sent > to the technical support people of the product). > Perhaps discussion on technical documentation > (like the RKMs) could go on here. Let's try c.s.a.p.tools, c.s.a.docs; might as well break it into digestable bits. > comp.sys.amiga.programmer.programming > Real programming related discussion goes on here. > Things like: "How do I do X?" etc. A terrible > group name, though. c.s.a.p.methods, or c.s.a.p.assist, perhaps? > comp.sys.amiga.programmer.asm > Assembly related programming. There currently > seems to be quite a lot of people who would read > this group. Those of us (me, for example) who > don't know a LEA from a CMP could unsubscribe to > it without regrets. Well, if we go language oriented, we need to cope with C, Modula-2, Fortran, Lisp/Scheme/Xlisp, Draco, AmigaBASIC, AREXX, and probably several other popular Amiga languages that don't come to mind immediately. I don't terribly much mind doing this for assembly, which seems to be a bit of a special case, but the other less popular languages would work better as mailing lists, like the current fairly low traffic but high value m2 mailing list. In fact, I'd like to see proponents of the Lisp family, Draco users, and Fortran users get mailing lists set up and the mail servers posted with the comp.sys.amiga.introduction FAQ and the big list published for all of Usenet as well. Any users of those languages with capability to put up a mail server, drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with the m2 list maintainer. It might be fun to have a c.s.a.p.langs and a one way echo from the mail lists to the group so those who care to could follow the traffic, but it would stay sorted out for the list users. AmigaBASIC is a bit of a puzzle; it is worthless for the A3000 due to "yet another Microsoft programming design blunder(tm)", but there is a lot of code around and probably lots of people still using it, though the traffic about it is minor; for now, say a mailing list if anyone cares to, and toss it in with the other low use languages. Ditto ABASIC, only more so. AREXX is another special case, and probably deserves a group of its own, too. > And my favourite: > comp.sys.amiga.programmer.I.don't.know.where.to.p- > ost.so.I'll.post.here.dammit I like it, I like it; the special characters might be a bit of a problem, but ... > Questions like: "Is there a program which does > X?", "Program X does Y, I want it to do Z. > HELP!!!!", "Program X gurues. HELP!!!". A group > for people who think that if a question concerns a > program, it is related to programming. The c.s.a.introduction group is supposed to do this; it needs to get used more. Start redirecting the posters of this kind of questions there (in EMAIL, for Klortho's sake!) > Nah, it would never work. The current size of > c.s.a.programmer is a bit too much for me, though. > Perhaps I should begin applying KILL files to this > group, too. That also works, but you miss a lot that casually mentions what your are trying to avoid in a posting you'd really like to read. I find making an anti-KILL file works better; put in all the folks you like to follow, mark their stuff saved for later, kill all the rest, and then yank the marked stuff forward to read. If you use trn (or perhaps nn), you can read progenitor articles even if you've killed them if the answers look interesting. Of course, per Kant's Categorical Imperative, it's worth noting that this fails miserably if everyone does it. Well, the lack of response almost made me give up on this whole concept of another reorganization, but my two weeks of cat sitting that's kept me off the net a lot is up tomorrow, and you've started things off, so I'll try a little harder. I'd still like to talk about this stuff in c.s.a.advocacy, but I am reminded most of the readership avoids that group like the plague, so let's crosspost to .misc and .programmer a bit until we get chased out, to try to draw a crowd. In my never ending quest to keep the c.s.a.* hierarchy flat, looking back over this, how about these for a starting set of names to pick apart? c.s.a.prog-advice (or prog-methods) c.s.a.prog-asm c.s.a.prog-arexx (or just let comp.lang.rexx carry the amiga stuff, too) c.s.a.prog-langs (and/or prog-misc) c.s.a.prog-docs c.s.a.prog-system (and/or prog-scripts) (or c.s.a.system, Dan's proposal, though I like to think of this as programming too) c.s.a.prog-tools That gives seven to nine groups, about the right number of chunks to make the current traffic bearable; are those groups such that some people would not at all read some of them (the goal of a split, of course), or does that just subdivide without removing the need to follow all subgroups, a fairly worthless exercise? I'd even add a c.s.a.prog-intro, if necessary. While I'm doing this, let's pull the idea of chopping up c.s.a.hardware back into the fire and the crosspost list, too. Last time, I proposed a .design, .standard, .3rd-party, and .hackers subdivision; this gets uglier, 'cause "hardware" doesn't have a pretty abbreviation, but how about these as flat subdivision names? c.s.a.hdwr-design c.s.a.hdwr-standard (or hdwr-stock) c.s.a.hdwr-3rd-party (whew, just made 14 characters) c.s.a.hdwr-hacking Again, vanilla questions about connecting a disk driver and hard disk and drive software together belong in c.s.a.introduction, not .hardware or its proposed replacements, but it will take some firm guidance (in EMAIL) to make that happen. What have I missed here or done wrong, or are the solder freaks happy with things as is despite the volume? Any stuff still left in c.s.a.misc that constitutes enough traffic to deserve a home of its own, and isn't just missing its proper group now? Besides comp.sys.amiga.paging.dave.haynie.help.help.help, I mean? [Sorry, Dave, couldn't resist.] /// It's Amiga /// for me: why Kent, the man from xanth. \\\/// settle for \XX/ anything less? -- Convener, COMPLETED comp.sys.amiga grand reorganization. Here we go again.