The way to most successfully continue this in the long term,
A careful mix of technical infrastructure/conventions and some,
ehm, social engineering may be needed, at least that is my
experience from TclURL and PythonURL (both operating for several
years now).
Taking care of "how" is trivial. Email, wiki, RSS, newsgroup,
whatever. But the other essential ingredient of long term
collective participation IMO, is to make the act of compiling/
publishing a weekly summary attractive to the person doing it.
Several ways to get there - here are some notes on that:
- Don't underestimate the role of each individual involved in
getting long-term activities going and *keeping* them going.
Commitment is a human quality, no matter how much we scripting
geeks all love to automate everything under the sun.
- Limited investment: rotating participation, so that people can
contribute without being sucked into a permanent commitment. There
is nothing wrong with doing say 4 weekly summaries, then passing
the baton on to others, then coming back to do another round of
summaries. It lets those who like to do this become real good at
it, as repeat participants.
- A high profile: let community leaders kick off the process, so
that things start out with a very high quality and visibility.
Setting the standard as well as showing serious buy-in from the
leaders. Becoming one of the future contributors becomes a matter
of respect and pride. Wanna do something for Lua? Get yourself
invited for a round of weekly summaries.
- One person will probably have to oversee the process long term,
so that new contributors (they are more like "editors", really) get
queued up and transfer their responsibility in an orderly manner.
- Personal visibility: the person currently doing the work "owns"
that weekly summary, and gets mentioned by name. Again, pride and
professionalism for all to see.
- A fixed format, so the effort remains focused on content, not
style. Both TclURL and PythonURL have been using a one-line
description plus 1..3 urls per item with great success. It's a
pointer to the real information first, and a summary by its choice
of description and exact urls second. The mantra is: keep it
simple, plain text, concise, easy to skim.
- Strict weekly cycle so everyone knows the summary comes out on,
say, Sunday or Monday. Continuity works best when there is a
simple and natural pattern. Also makes for very clear commitments.
- Consider adding an email subscription option. With all the
activity and noise out there in that digital soup called the
internet, I still like to see an executive summary drop on my floor
mat once a week, eh, I mean inbox. Yes, even when we have RSS.
Below are copies of recent TclURL and PythonURL posts FYI, both
under the superb stewardship of Cameron Laird for many many years now.
-jcw
Newsgroups: comp.lang.tcl
Subject: Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links (Jan 3)
From: Cameron Laird <tcl-url@phaseit.net>
Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:01:34 +0000
QOTW: "[I]t's almost always a mistake to change [encoding
system]." - Donal K.
Fellows
"... for me it has always been simple: 'Three or more: Use a for.'
This is
why we have loops. This is why we are programmers." - Charles Petzold
http://charlespetzold.com/etc/DoesVisualStudioRotTheMind.html
DLTK supports Itcl and XOTcl class browsing:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/
eeb53e0f5f8f328e/
There still are reasons to like RamDebugger, Komodo, Eclipse,
Elvis, ...
Jeff, Donal, and WavyDavy (among others) explain the hazards to Tcl
when threads and forking come together:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/
90781d253afae197/
Thanks to Arjen Markus for his weekly summary of Wiki action:
We have a large bunch of pages to cover, so, apart
from the best wishes for the New Year: let's start!
What about Tcl 8.5?
- Write down _your_ impressions of Tcl/Tk 8.5?
<http:/wiki.tcl.tk/20541> is one personal account
- Numerous things have changed, but the [expr] command
has gained a few very nice features. See for instance
<http:/wiki.tcl.tk/20279>
- Finding and installing extensions should be even easier with
Teacup and Teapot: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/17305>
Graphics, not necessarily the 8.5 way
- There are numerous widget sets besides Tk (and Ttk) that
you can use: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/1746>
- The megaimage package is a fairly new way to handle images
- <http://wiki.tcl.tk/20112> teaches you how to use it.
- This French page presents a little GUI around the UNIX/Linux
tools find and grep, (the GUI is based on GRIDPLUS2) -
<http://wfr.tcl.tk/1549>
A computation or two
- Fascinated by statistics? This page provides an overview
of the statistical distributions you can find on the
Wiki: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/20527>
- Or do you prefer spreadsheets? Here's a nice page for
you then: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/20552>
- And what would computing be without regular expressions?
PCRE are one particular flavour of REs that some people
like and others don't: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/9384>
- One of the underlying techniques for dealing with REs
is that of deterministic finite-state machines. And
that technique has its own Wiki page:
<http://wiki.tcl.tk/16276>
People
- Will the combination of signals for our two main senses
make it a better editor? It seems a nice idea, anyhow:
<http://wiki.tcl.tk/20585>
- How do you develop? Is "test-driven development" your
thing too? <http://wiki.tcl.tk/13327>
- Now there's a thought! A meeting of European Tclers
(or better still: a meeting of Tclers on European
soil) in France? Just one of the topics in this
monthly summary: <http://wfr.tcl.tk/1554>
Everything Tcl-related you want is probably one or two clicks away
in these
pages:
The "Welcome to comp.lang.tcl" message by Andreas Kupries
http://www.purl.org/net/tcl-welcome
comp.lang.tcl is a crucial resource for Tcl practitioners.
An interesting perspective on its traffic appears at
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/about
The Tcl Developer Site is Tcl's "home base".
http://www.tcl.tk
Larry Virden maintains a comp.lang.tcl FAQ launcher.
http://www.purl.org/NET/Tcl-FAQ/
The Tcl Developer Xchange is a highly organized resource center
of documents and software with provisions for individuals to
maintain references to their own software:
http://www.tcl.tk/resource/
The TDX sponsor, ActiveState, also keeps info to convince your
boss Tcl is a good thing
http://www.tcl.tk/scripting/
The Tcl'ers Wiki is a huge, dynamic, collaboratively edited
repository
of documentation, examples, tutorials and pontifications on all
things
Tcl.
http://wiki.tcl.tk/0
For the ideal overview of the topics about Tcl most likely to
interest a newcomer, see "Arts and Crafts ..."
http://wiki.tcl.tk/969
There's also a high-quality Wikibook on Tcl:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:Tcl
ActiveState maintains binaries distribution and development tools
http://www.activestate.com/Tcl
along with a Cookbook of Tcl recipes
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Tcl
"La Gazette du Técleux" is an important monthly publication.
http://wfr.tcl.tk/1159
deli.cio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference
commentary.
It already aggregates quite a bit of Tcl intelligence.
http://del.icio.us/tag/tcl
Cameron Laird tracks several Tcl/Tk references of interest (but
needs to validate many of the links).
http://phaseit.net/claird/comp.lang.tcl/
Years ago, Cetus Links maintained a Tcl/Tk page with verified links
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_tcl_tk.html
"Yahoo! Groups" archives comp.lang.tcl.announce posts--even
though clta itself is dormant.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tcl_announce/
We're working on more useful archives of past installments. In the
meantime, an alternative is
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Tcl-
URL&as_ugroup=comp.lang.tcl
Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.
To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday, ask
<claird@phaseit.net> to subscribe. Be sure to mention "Tcl-URL!".
--
Phaseit, Inc. (http://phaseit.net) is pleased to participate in and
sponsor the "Tcl-URL!" project.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
From: "Gabriel Genellina" <python-url@phaseit.net>
Subject: Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Dec 31)
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:33:34 +0000
QOTW: "I find the best approach is to use multiple languages." -
Roger Binns
"All generators can be re-written with classes using the iterator
protocol." - Jean-Paul Calderone
Mutable default arguments revisited:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/
browse_thread/thread/33b7b1a1f62c9d91/
itertools.dropwhile/takewhile might be deprecated:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/
browse_thread/thread/8e19a68c0047430a/
Getting n items at a time from a generator:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/
browse_thread/thread/4696a3b3e1a6d691/
A design decision: have an Article class, want a list of all
Articles:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/
browse_thread/thread/9be37092d1c3c465/
Looking for a common API for parallel processing:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/
browse_thread/thread/57ef7cf6fc5e49b2/
Why is pythonXX.dll installed in a system directory, and not
besides the python executable?
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/
browse_thread/thread/1c165cabaa7208eb/
======================================================================
==
Everything Python-related you want is probably one or two clicks
away in
these pages:
Python.org's Python Language Website is the traditional
center of Pythonia
http://www.python.org
Notice especially the master FAQ
http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html
PythonWare complements the digest you're reading with the
marvelous daily python url
http://www.pythonware.com/daily
Mygale is a news-gathering webcrawler that specializes in (new)
World-Wide Web articles related to Python.
http://www.awaretek.com/nowak/mygale.html
While cosmetically similar, Mygale and the Daily Python-URL
are utterly different in their technologies and generally in
their results.
Just beginning with Python? This page is a great place to start:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Programmers
The Python Papers aims to publish "the efforts of Python
enthusiats":
http://pythonpapers.org/
The Python Magazine is a technical monthly devoted to Python:
http://pythonmagazine.com
Readers have recommended the "Planet" sites:
http://planetpython.org
http://planet.python.org
comp.lang.python.announce announces new Python software. Be
sure to scan this newsgroup weekly.
http://groups.google.com/groups?
oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python.announce
Python411 indexes "podcasts ... to help people learn Python ..."
Updates appear more-than-weekly:
http://www.awaretek.com/python/index.html
Steve Bethard continues the marvelous tradition early borne by
Andrew Kuchling, Michael Hudson, Brett Cannon, Tony Meyer, and Tim
Lesher of intelligently summarizing action on the python-dev
mailing
list once every other week.
http://www.python.org/dev/summary/
The Python Package Index catalogues packages.
http://www.python.org/pypi/
The somewhat older Vaults of Parnassus ambitiously collects
references
to all sorts of Python resources.
http://www.vex.net/~x/parnassus/
Much of Python's real work takes place on Special-Interest Group
mailing lists
http://www.python.org/sigs/
Python Success Stories--from air-traffic control to on-line
match-making--can inspire you or decision-makers to whom you're
subject with a vision of what the language makes practical.
http://www.pythonology.com/success
The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has replaced the Python
Consortium as an independent nexus of activity. It has official
responsibility for Python's development and maintenance.
http://www.python.org/psf/
Among the ways you can support PSF is with a donation.
http://www.python.org/psf/donate.html
Kurt B. Kaiser publishes a weekly report on faults and patches.
http://www.google.com/groups?as_usubject=weekly%20python%
20patch
Although unmaintained since 2002, the Cetus collection of Python
hyperlinks retains a few gems.
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html
Python FAQTS
http://python.faqts.com/
The Cookbook is a collaborative effort to capture useful and
interesting recipes.
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python
Many Python conferences around the world are in preparation.
Watch this space for links to them.
Among several Python-oriented RSS/RDF feeds available are
http://www.python.org/channews.rdf
http://bootleg-rss.g-blog.net/pythonware_com_daily.pcgi
http://python.de/backend.php
For more, see
http://www.syndic8.com/feedlist.php?ShowMatch=python&ShowStatus=all
The old Python "To-Do List" now lives principally in a
SourceForge reincarnation.
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?
atid=355470&group_id=5470&func=browse
http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0042/
The online Python Journal is posted at pythonjournal.cognizor.com.
editor@pythonjournal.com and editor@pythonjournal.cognizor.com
welcome submission of material that helps people's understanding
of Python use, and offer Web presentation of your work.
del.icio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference
commentary.
It already aggregates quite a bit of Python intelligence.
http://del.icio.us/tag/python
*Py: the Journal of the Python Language*
http://www.pyzine.com
Archive probing tricks of the trade:
http://groups.google.com/groups?
oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python&num=100
http://groups.google.com/groups?meta=site%3Dgroups%26group%
3Dcomp.lang.python.*
Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here:
http://www.ddj.com/topic/python/ (requires subscription)
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=python-url
+group:comp.lang.python*&start=0&scoring=d&
http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html (dormant)
or
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Python-URL!
&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python
There is *not* an RSS for "Python-URL!"--at least not yet. Arguments
for and against are occasionally entertained.
Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.
E-mail to <Python-URL@phaseit.net> should get through.
To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning
(approximately), ask <claird@phaseit.net> to subscribe. Mention
"Python-URL!". Write to the same address to unsubscribe.
-- The Python-URL! Team--
Phaseit, Inc. (http://phaseit.net) is pleased to participate in and
sponsor the "Python-URL!" project. Watch this space for upcoming
news about posting archives.
