On Sat, Apr 29, 2006 at 11:28:26AM -0500, Russ Foster wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Randal L. Schwartz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > Your other lists coddle to the beginners who can't operate their mail > > client, > > at the expense of experts who *can*. Let's not hobble the experts, or the > > experts will go away. > > > > I thought this was a beginners list?
He has a point, in that the experts are here to answer questions for the beginners, and are an important contributing influence to the beginners' list. I'm in the abnormal position of being pretty darned good at some things and a rank neophyte at others, so I try to share a little of what I know and soak up knowledge offered by people like Randal, Tom, et alii: among other things, they tend to provide a check on the help the rest of us offer each other so that when we give advice that has some negative consequences of which we're not fully cognizant at the time they can set us straight. I'd rather not see them chased off. On the other hand, you too have a point: I rather suspect that there've probably been a handful of beginners chased off over time by the odd manner in which the list behaves (in comparison with many other lists). That's not really an optimal situation, either. There's gotta be a simple solution out there somewhere that allows a more-convenient (for those used to being able to simply "reply" to a list) means of interacting with the list without forcing them to A) change email clients and B) become expert operators of the new clients just to be able to get help while still keeping things tidy in the minds of those who prefer "proper" list handling. I'm not going to make the mistake of dividing those two groups directly between "experts" and "beginners", though. I tend to think that, in the world of Perl, the experts are probably as likely to fall into either camp in terms of their list behavior expectations as they are to fall into the other, though it's true that beginners are far more likely to end up sympathizing more with the "just reply, darnit" preference, I'd guess. I entertain hopes of some day being an all-around expert in Perl myself, but while I sympathize with some of what I assume is the reasoning Mr. Schwartz uses to justify and inform his preference, I suspect it will be a very long time indeed before I actually prefer a situation that will at least occasionally produce errors in email targeting on my part, even if only because I'm moving my email operations from one system to another and thus have to reconfigure sending preferences. I also, of course, have some sympathy for those whose email clients aren't as configurable as, say, Mutt. I've rambled enough on that subject for the nonce. (Ironically, I almost sent that to only one person, rather than the list. Whoops. I still haven't gotten around to messing with my MUA's configuration to solve this little issue on my end.) -- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] This sig for rent: a Signify v1.14 production from http://www.debian.org/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://learn.perl.org/> <http://learn.perl.org/first-response>
