Hi, Last week I posted an email from Edi Weitz, who indicated he would be glad if someone else wanted to take over heading the CL Cookbook project (http://cl-cookbook.sourceforge.net/). I wanted to pass this news on to others here, and also raise the idea that a more open infrastructure might help breathe new life into that project. Thanks to everyone who replied.
Here are the main points I see now: 1) new infrastructure is just yak shaving As JC Helary pointed out, the CL Cookbook project already allows for convenient submission through the sourceforge submission system. In fact the homepage recommends using the "patch submission" system for submitting new material. (I think I didn't notice that because the sourceforge login procedure and project management tools have always put me to sleep.) Even if SF is clunky, it works. Setting up yet another wiki is probably just a way to substitute software building when what's needed is a bit of organization-building and marketing. 2) a little sprucing up would go a long way That said, it's currently pretty easy to miss the straightforward submission procedure, and in fact to miss the scope of the material already on that site. This is partly because their main page is just so plainly designed. It would probably help quite a bit if their homepage had a very modest redesign which showcased the content more, and which made the pitch for submissions more succinct, convenient, and hyperlinkable (e.g., a mailto: address, and/or a quick word on how to use the sourceforge system). Every one loves ease of use (e.g., http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Python/Cookbook/ ) 3) they need new blood. Well, this much is obvious. Their list traffic has been down near zero for almost a year. But those were editors/contributors. What strikes me here is that there is much larger number of people willing to offer small submissions occasionally (just look at the code examples offered daily on comp.lang.lisp). Thus it would require a comparatively modest amount of time for editing and publicizing this resource to grow it into something more useful. This idea originally started with me just wanting to write up a few quick paragraphs and some code examples based on my recent adventures with CFFI. I couldn't find a place to send them with little admin hassle, although the CL cookbook seems like it aims to be the home for that kind of material. I guess my hope is that if that home just laid out a nice welcome mat, then the snowball would start growing... So the final question is, does this project appeal to folks here enough that they'd want to get involved in some way? I'm a rank newbie, so I don't think I could be useful for much besides cleaning up the homepage. But I just thought it would be worthwhile to summarize the possibilities here, or "run it up the flagpole" as they say... alexis p.s. an afterthought: does the cookbook overlap too much with the existing gardeners project of the new lisp faq? I imagine language faqs as devoted to larger questions (where is the benevolent dictator?), and the cookbook to quick and educational examples (here is how to get a CFFI snippet up and running in 10 minutes). But maybe I've got the wrong idea. If they are overlapping, it might be worth considering importing some of the material although of course with due care not to step on toes. _______________________________________________ Gardeners mailing list [email protected] http://www.lispniks.com/mailman/listinfo/gardeners
