Re: Appropriate use of the Common-Lisp mailing list

[Jim Kempf <kempf%hplabsz@hplabs.HP.COM>]

While I understand the motivation behind this note, I belive a more fruitful
approach would be to provide a forum for novices to post questions, rather
than chiding them for posting their questions to the only forum they perhaps
know about. I personally believe that Common Lisp is generally useful enough
as a language that information about how to use it should not become the
property of an "elitist" club, but rather should be available to all. 
Electronic bboards are one of the most effective and timely means of 
dissemintating such information.

I agree, in addition, that there should be a forum for experts, where
serious design questions can be posted, particularly with regard to
enhancements and fixes needed as a result of the standardization process.

For those users who have access to UN*X notes, a more appropriate forum
for novice questions might be the notes group comp.lang.lisp. Traffic
in this group is generally light, and mostly of the nature of "Where
can I find <unbound> implementation" or "Does anyone have experience
with <unbound> implementation"  rather than questions about how to
the use the language. This is in contrast to the groups on C and
other languages, where such questions form the bulk of the notes.

Therefore, perhaps a better suggestion would be to use comp.lang.lisp
for specific questions about how to use the language, and save
this group for design questions on the language itself. Those users
who don't have a UN*X notes feed will, unfortunately, have a problem,
but notes feeds are easy to get.

Additionally, as Ken pointed out in the base note, local experts (providing
they are available) are generally even more effective than bboards, and
books are approprate for getting the bigger picture.

	Jim Kempf	kempf@hplabs.hp.com