Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[Alex Blakemore]

In article <BzCs15.B28@gdls.CSCTMD.COM> tarcea@gdls.CSCTMD.COM (Glenn Tarcea) w
rites:
>   Can we please stay on the topic of discussing Ada, and Ada in
> real-world systems. All languages have their strengths and weaknesses
> and I am tired of hearing religous comparisons of why either Ada is
> better than language X or language X is better than Ada. Maybe a news
> group called comp.lang.religion should be started for these stupid discussion
s. 

good posting, but how about a real division-

make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.

  some suggestions

    comp.lang.advocacy   - for the flame wars
    comp.lang.programmer - for discussions of design/development Ada language i
ssues
                           (or comp.lang.technical or better name?)
    comp.lang.announce   - moderated, low volume important announcements
                           of meetings, products, standards, new mandates :) et
c
    comp.lang.misc       - catch all

this works well in the NeXT groups which I've been reading lately
they have huge flame fests between Objective-C and C++ but confine
them to the advocacy group.

anyone interested or familiar with how to do this?

P.S. For people worried about getting overrun by C++, stop worrying
and do something to contribute to Ada's success instead of flaming.
Does anyone else program in Ada on a NeXT using a DVORAK keyboard?
Talk about swimming against the tide.

-- 
---------------------------------------------------
Alex Blakemore alex@cs.umd.edu   NeXT mail accepted

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[enterpoop.mit.edu!eru.mt.luth.se!lunic!sunic!mcsun!ub4b!sunbim!usenet]

In article 62879@mimsy.umd.edu, alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore) writes:
>make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.
>
>  some suggestions
>
>    comp.lang.advocacy   - for the flame wars
>    comp.lang.programmer - for discussions of design/development Ada language 
issues
>                           (or comp.lang.technical or better name?)
>    comp.lang.announce   - moderated, low volume important announcements
>                           of meetings, products, standards, new mandates :) e
tc
>    comp.lang.misc       - catch all
>
>this works well in the NeXT groups which I've been reading lately
>they have huge flame fests between Objective-C and C++ but confine
>them to the advocacy group.
>
>anyone interested or familiar with how to do this?
>
>P.S. For people worried about getting overrun by C++, stop worrying
>and do something to contribute to Ada's success instead of flaming.
>Does anyone else program in Ada on a NeXT using a DVORAK keyboard?
>Talk about swimming against the tide.
>
>-- 
>---------------------------------------------------
>Alex Blakemore alex@cs.umd.edu   NeXT mail accepted


I like the idea and the division as proposed sounds reasonable.
Frank

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[fred j mccall 575-3539]

In <62879@mimsy.umd.edu> alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore) writes:

>In article <BzCs15.B28@gdls.CSCTMD.COM> tarcea@gdls.CSCTMD.COM (Glenn Tarcea) 
writes:
>>   Can we please stay on the topic of discussing Ada, and Ada in
>> real-world systems. All languages have their strengths and weaknesses
>> and I am tired of hearing religous comparisons of why either Ada is
>> better than language X or language X is better than Ada. Maybe a news
>> group called comp.lang.religion should be started for these stupid discussio
ns. 

>good posting, but how about a real division-

>make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.

>  some suggestions

>    comp.lang.advocacy   - for the flame wars
>    comp.lang.programmer - for discussions of design/development Ada language 
issues
>                           (or comp.lang.technical or better name?)
>    comp.lang.announce   - moderated, low volume important announcements
>                           of meetings, products, standards, new mandates :) e
tc
>    comp.lang.misc       - catch all

Uh, I think you're probably going to have some problems getting this
past all the other language groups, since it seems to assume that
'comp.lang.programmer' assumes Ada.  Now, I can't speak for anyone
else, but I'm SURE I've programmed computers in other languages
besides Ada.

Now, I might vote for a comp.lang.announce, but I don't know that I
would want someone dedicated to ANY language 'moderating' it.  Once
again, it assumes that 'comp.lang' equates to 'comp.lang.ada'.  I
suspect this is a real bad assumption.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[Michael Feldman]

In article <1992Dec17.084727.26313@sunbim.be> accs1@bagheera.mumath writes:
>In article 62879@mimsy.umd.edu, alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore) writes:
>>make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.
>>
>>  some suggestions
>>
>>    comp.lang.advocacy   - for the flame wars
>>    comp.lang.programmer - for discussions of design/development Ada language
 issues
>>                           (or comp.lang.technical or better name?)
>>    comp.lang.announce   - moderated, low volume important announcements
>>                           of meetings, products, standards, new mandates :) 
etc
>>    comp.lang.misc       - catch all
>>
>>this works well in the NeXT groups which I've been reading lately
>>they have huge flame fests between Objective-C and C++ but confine
>>them to the advocacy group.
>>
>>anyone interested or familiar with how to do this?
Usenet has a balloting procedure, but I haven't the foggiest idea how it
works. No doubt there is a bewsgroup to post this to, but I don't know
that either...
>>
>
>I like the idea and the division as proposed sounds reasonable.
I will also vote yes when the ballot arrives. Long overdue!

Mike Feldman

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hpscit.sc.h]

Alex Blakemore (alex@cs.umd.edu) wrote:
: make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.
: 
:   some suggestions
: 
:     comp.lang.advocacy   - for the flame wars
:     comp.lang.programmer - for discussions of design/development Ada language
 issues
:                            (or comp.lang.technical or better name?)
:     comp.lang.announce   - moderated, low volume important announcements
:                            of meetings, products, standards, new mandates :) 
etc
:     comp.lang.misc       - catch all
: 

Am I wrong if I assume that you really meant to write 'comp.lang.ada.*'
instead of 'comp.lang.*'?  At least for the *programmer, *announce, and *misc
groups anyway.  IMHO, there should really be only one 'comp.lang.*.advocacy'
group.  Kind of a /dev/null... huh?  ;-)

I'll vote YES on comp.lang.advocacy, comp.lang.ada.[programmer, announce, misc]
.

Thomas Vachuska
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tom@mothra.rose.hp.com                   (916)-785-4983  (Telnet & Voice Mail)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[Mike Ryer]

I would like the political/language-war discussions to be on another group
and have no objection to splitting comp.lang.ada into as many groups
as anyone wants, BUT ..

If the people who want to post about "C is better; No Ada's better; No, ..."
decide to cross-post to all n subgroups, then we're all worse off.  We'll
have to skip over the same submissions "n" times.

So, lets hear from the major contributors to the langage wars -- would
you agree to post only on the comp.lang.relative.merits (or whatever) group?

Mike "doesn't want to become an expert on trn Kill files" Ryer
Intermetrics

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[Keith Thompson @pulsar]

In article <62879@mimsy.umd.edu> alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore) writes:
> [...]
> make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.
> [...]

Don't forget that the comp.lang.ada Usenet newsgroup is bidirectionally
gatewayed with the info-ada mailing list (info-ada@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu).
-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith)  kst@telesoft.com
TeleSoft, 5959 Cornerstone Court West, San Diego, CA, 92121-9891
"Listen to me, people!  We must stick them with quills -- it's the only way!"

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[Alex Blakemore]

% make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.
%   some suggestions
%     comp.lang.advocacy   - for the flame wars
%     comp.lang.programmer - for discussions of design/development Ada language
 issues
%                            (or comp.lang.technical or better name?)
%     comp.lang.announce   - moderated, low volume important announcements
%                            of meetings, products, standards, new mandates :) 
etc
%     comp.lang.misc       - catch all
 
mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

> Uh, I think you're probably going to have some problems getting this
> past all the other language groups, since it seems to assume that
> 'comp.lang.programmer' assumes Ada.


sorry, my mistake. Of course the groups should start with
the prefix comp.lang.ada.  I didnt type what I meant.

so the names would be comp.lang.ada.advocacy etc

Is anyone familiar with the call for votes process?


-- 
---------------------------------------------------
Alex Blakemore alex@cs.umd.edu   NeXT mail accepted

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[Robert I. Eachus]

   In article 62879@mimsy.umd.edu, alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore) writes:
   >make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.
   >
   >  some suggestions
   >
   >    comp.lang.advocacy   - for the flame wars
   >    comp.lang.programmer - for discussions of design/development Ada langua
ge issues
   >                           (or comp.lang.technical or better name?)
   >    comp.lang.announce   - moderated, low volume important announcements
   >                           of meetings, products, standards, new mandates :
) etc
   >    comp.lang.misc       - catch all

   If this is becomming a serious proposal, the names should be
comp.lang.ada.programmer, etc.  However comp.lang.advocacy might be
more appropriate than having a separate group for each language.  (Of
course, as soon as this is mentioned in news.groups, the C and C++
groups will play keep up with the Jones.)



--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!csc.ti.com!tilde.csc.ti.com!mksol]

In <EACHUS.92Dec18133934@oddjob.mitre.org> eachus@oddjob.mitre.org (Robert I. E
achus) writes:


>   In article 62879@mimsy.umd.edu, alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore) writes:
>   >make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.
>   >
>   >  some suggestions
>   >
>   >    comp.lang.advocacy   - for the flame wars
>   >    comp.lang.programmer - for discussions of design/development Ada langu
age issues
>   >                           (or comp.lang.technical or better name?)
>   >    comp.lang.announce   - moderated, low volume important announcements
>   >                           of meetings, products, standards, new mandates 
:) etc
>   >    comp.lang.misc       - catch all

>   If this is becomming a serious proposal, the names should be
>comp.lang.ada.programmer, etc.  However comp.lang.advocacy might be
>more appropriate than having a separate group for each language.  (Of
>course, as soon as this is mentioned in news.groups, the C and C++
>groups will play keep up with the Jones.)

Sounds good to me.  It would let me read the stuff I want to read
without having people in each group trying to tell me how "language X
is better than language Y", and people who WANT to do that could go to
comp.lang.advocacy.  Of course, that wouldn't stop it from happening
in the other groups, but it would at least give me someplace to tell
people who want to promote their language or back some other one to go
-- other than the obvious one, I mean.

[There seem to be fewer of these 'my language is better/your language
is crap' wars in the C/C++ groups than I've seen in the Ada group.
Not sure why that is, precisely.]

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[Dick Dunn]

ryer@inmet.camb.inmet.com (Mike Ryer) writes:
>So, lets hear from the major contributors to the langage wars -- would
>you agree to post only on the comp.lang.relative.merits (or whatever) group?

Such a group would get old quickly (not to say that discussion has died out
in, e.g., talk.politics:-) and probably only a few real flamers would
bother with it.

One thing to consider is that the +/- Ada campaigns in the language wars
have a slightly different color:  We find some shred of reason to doubt
Ada's future, and toss it out.  It's like shouting "THEATER!" at a crowded
fire...everyone assumes his role and begins posturing as the flames rise.
This *does* give some of the "mine's bigger!"-"no way!" disputes that are
at the core of most language wars, but the difference with an Ada language
war is that it often starts with kindling doubt of whether Ada can make it
in the long run...and even the arguments that don't start there almost
always devolve to that.  It's a good way to get Ada folks away from their
work and into insecurely contemplating their collective navel (while the
other language partisans address the survival of their languages by
writing code with them;-).

Stated another way, I see a qualitative difference in that the challenges
to Ada are often not really "x vs y" but simply "not x".  Other languages
enter into the discussion as examples.  It's hard to siphon off discussions
like that in a "relative merits" discussion, because so much of it is
focused only on Ada, therefore arguably pertinent to Ada.  The whole
range--from the responses to Holden's occasional incendiary lob into the
group, to Aharonian's impassioned pleas for people to wake up and look
around--is dealt with introspectively.  What I'm pointing out here--the
self-doubt and extensive rationalizing (whether needed or not) of the Ada
community--has to be considered in how to get unproductive discussions out
of the way.
-- 
Dick Dunn    rcd@eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado USA
   ...Mr. Natural says, "Use the right tool for the job."

Re: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames

[agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!fcom.cc.utah.edu!val]

In article 62879@mimsy.umd.edu, alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore) writes:
>make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.
>
.. comp.lang.advocacy, comp.lang.programmer, comp.lang.announce,
.. comp.lang.misc (all for Ada discussions)

This is definitely an ethnocentric view of programming languages, isn't it?
Or, did you forget the ":-)"?

In <EACHUS.92Dec18133934@oddjob.mitre.org> eachus@oddjob.mitre.org (Robert I. E
achus) writes:
:    If this is becomming a serious proposal, the names should be
: comp.lang.ada.programmer, etc.  However comp.lang.advocacy might be
: more appropriate than having a separate group for each language.  (Of
: course, as soon as this is mentioned in news.groups, the C and C++
: groups will play keep up with the Jones.)

There simply isn't enough volume in the comp.lang.ada group to really
consider this.  Since there is at least twice the volume in each of the
comp.lang.c and comp.lang.c++ groups, it will be sooner justified there
than here.

Nevertheless, the comp.lang.advocacy group does have some merit.  It should
be used when discussions degenerate from simply correction of facts.

mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
> Sounds good to me.  It would let me read the stuff I want to read
> without having people in each group trying to tell me how "language X
> is better than language Y", and people who WANT to do that could go to
> comp.lang.advocacy.  ...
>...
> [There seem to be fewer of these 'my language is better/your language
> is crap' wars in the C/C++ groups than I've seen in the Ada group.
> Not sure why that is, precisely.]

I could speculate.  Could it be "Napoleon Syndrome"?

Or could it be...
> "Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
>  in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden

--
|============ with disclaimer; use disclaimer; =============///=============|
| If programmers designed languages like Congress passes   /// Weber State  |
| laws, we'd have a language that was mandated. -- Val \\\///   University  |
|============== val@csulx.weber.edu ====================\///= Ogden UT USA =|