On Dec 15, 2005, at 10:47 AM, Christopher Roach wrote: > Here, here. I agree with Mike. The average user--be they newbie or > seasoned lisper--needs a comprehensive website to go to for all of > their information needs with an intuitive interface that is shared by > all parts of the information repository. > > I think it would be really great starting point to go ahead and > compile a list of all the great resources for Lisp on the web right > now and get in touch with each one to work out the details of > combining them all into one exhaustive online resource.
I see where you're going with this but let me just urge a bit of caution--a big point behind the CL Gardeners philosophy (as I see it) is that we can do a lot of good with a lot less effort by just doing things that don't require massive coordination with existing projects. Think gardening not landscape architecture. ;-) > I believe that once we've got a good collection of the current > resources already > available, and a central website to link to them all (and hopefully to > provide a common contribution envrionment--e.g., Wiki, submission to a > standards group, whatever) it will be easier to see what needs to be > finished, improved, tested, documented, etc. > > So, here is my idea for how we can really get this ball rolling: > > 1) Compile a list of all available, free, online resources for Lisp Yes, gathering information is good. Requires no one's permission and we can probably use the information in a lot of good ways once we've got it. (What's in this garden anyway?) > 2) Get the permision of each author to incorporate their site into a > comprehensive online Lisp resource. I'd skip this step. It's likely to be a morass. We can link to stuff that's out there--that's what the web is for and can even provide mirrors of things that are appropriately licensed if we think that'd be a service to the Lisp community. But just getting everything one one site for it's own sake seems like a lot of trouble. > 3) Create said comprehensive resource (consistent design and others > can come later, but for the time being just a central point would be > nice), I do think CL Gardeners should put together a useful website on lispniks.com and aim to make it the first top for Lisp info. But that is going to happen more by us doing work--writing new content or providing organized links to other people's content. If you want a nice goal, figure out how we can have www.lispniks.com be the #1 search result when you Google for "lisp". (It's worth looking at what the current #1 result is--it's basically a collection of links. But it's fairly out of date so we ought to be able to do better.) > 4) Start outlining projects that need help and what needs to be done. Yes. This is indeed a core part of the CL Gardeners project. We will host such a list on www.lispniks.com and beyond that, this mailing list will be a place for interested volunteers to come and get help finding a project that suits their interests and abilities. > 5) Setup some kind of sign up list for each of the "To Do"'s so that > interested people can commit to helping a particular project This mailing list for a moment. I'll probably be setting up some dynamic (AllegroServe based) parts of www.lispniks.com in the near future. > 6) Solve all problems and take over the universe (maybe a bit > ambitious, but you have to start somewhere). Yes. > Peter, what would you think of this idea? Maybe I'm too much of a > neat freek, but I like to get a bit organized before jumping in and > tackling a problem. As you can see, I think it's mostly good. We just want to be on guard against trying to bite off too much at once. Imagine that we're all working in a huge garden spread all over a country estate. There are a zillion nooks and crannies where a gardner working alone can tend to a few plants and help them grow. Other places there might be an opportunity for a small team to reclaim a bit of overgrown, neglected land and put in some nice rose bushes or something. And it's also useful for people to walk through the garden and takes notes about what's where so we know what needs to be done. What we want to avoid is bringing in the bulldozers and backhoes and ripping everything up with a promise to put it all back together better than before. -Peter -- Peter Seibel * [EMAIL PROTECTED] Gigamonkeys Consulting * http://www.gigamonkeys.com/ Practical Common Lisp * http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ _______________________________________________ Gardeners mailing list [email protected] http://www.lispniks.com/mailman/listinfo/gardeners
