Hello Tim,
Saturday, April 22, 2006, 7:23:57 PM, you wrote:
tR> I feel the need to make a couple of points here:-
tR> a mailing list for newcomers and other learners to ask questions is a tR> good thing so long as enough people already knowledgeable and able to tR> spend time helping actually take part. A mailing list is not a good
this for me is the most important part, as only people can tell you that a different question might be more helpful than the reply to the current question.
tR> more importantly we need *content*. I'd bet that almost every tR> plausible newcomer question has been asked and answered but we have tR> no sensible record. Searching a mailing list archive isn't really
Content is just too fixed and reflects a certain point of view.
Questions often are implicitly about not knowing what to ask and IMHO content is not well equipped to deal with this kind of question.
Searching content easily turns into frustration when the searching persons mind is locked and better organisation of the content is no help for this problem.
It just needs people.
tR> more important still, we need *commitment* to do this and keep it up
Yes but we start and then everyone can see how far the commitment goes and hopefully the added commitment of people willing to help will be sufficient to get some more people into this community.
tR> to date and answer questions and take the the answers and make them tR> into newer or better tutorials and articles. We need people that are tR> competent (or great!) teachers to actually decide to make the effort
an interested pupil can make up for a lot of incompetence in a teacher if the teacher is willing. This is how squeak dev works :-)) Note the smiley!
Cheers,
Herbert mailto:herbertkoenig@gmx.net