Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!ENH.NIST.GOV!JOHNBARNES
From: JOHNBARNES@ENH.NIST.GOV
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Improving this newsgroup
Message-ID: <8912220809.AA29701@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 22 Dec 89 04:38:00 GMT
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 35

I accept Marcelino Bernardo's statement about the inadequacies of the 
glossy ST press when it comes to real technical information.  My reference
to a library included things like the Abacus and Sybex books as well as 
source codes to true public domain programs.

Many of the questions asked here, however, do not fall into the category
of technical information.  A number of them are from beginners who might
do well to read Ralph Turner's Help Key column in ST Informer or his 
"Atari ST Book".

Those questions that are of technical nature, such as the one about 
ringing the bell from GEM, oftewn receive rather terse answers that take a
lot of work to implement.  It would be nice to see these as more extended
articles and to have these archived somewhere.

The Atari community being what it is, we also see a number of cries for help
coming out of utter darkness.  The newsgroup serves a valuable function in
giving these people a community that they can belong to.

One difference between the 8-bit days and modern (ST) times seems to be that
programming has become more complicated and people are less willing to share
their knowledge openly.  Of course in those days we really didn't have 
"developers" because Atari was just a game machine.  Nowadays we see oodles of
"public domain" software but very little source code.

Ken Badertscher sometimes seems to feel that the only programmers worth talking
to are the ones who are initiated into the Masonic Lodge by paying the fees and
learning the secret handshakes.

Atari needs every bit of help it can get.  Every program that actually gets 
written and that does what it is supposed to do is one more reason to buy 
Atari.   Information that will help accomplish this should be disseminated
as widely as possible.  This newsgroup is one way of doing that and it could
become a truly valuable resource if we could put some more punch into the 
discourse.