[rspec-users] Time for seperate cucumber mailing list?

[Tom Cloyd]

James Byrne wrote:
> Bart Zonneveld wrote:
>
>   
>> How'bout splitting this list up into a more "beginners" oriented
>> version, and a discussion one?
>> This list is called rspec-users, so let's let this be the starting
>> point of questions like "I can't get rspec/cucumber/whatyouhaving to
>> work", and have a rspec-discussion list with the more high level/BDD-
>> oriented discussions?
>>     
>
> My own experience with this sort of bifurcation has not been happy. 
> Putting all levels of experience together seems to provide a richer and 
> more satisfactory experience for all, in most cases.  Where the audience 
> spans a vast range of experience then a seemingly innocuous how-to 
> question like, How do I get this regexp to work in cucumber, may lead 
> into a more fulsome examination of not only how, but why and when, you 
> use regexp in testing at all and why and when you should not. The real 
> value of experience lies in knowing what questions you should be asking 
> and not in just parroting back answers to the problem posed.  That sort 
> of expansiveness, of looking at the underlying issues, tends to 
> disappear in nube/old-hand lists.
>
> If a mailing list is divided arbitrarily along knowledge lines then one 
> has created an additional task of evaluating which list to post on.  If 
> the list is to be divided at all, and I am not convinced that there 
> exists any pressing reason to do so, then I believe that it should be 
> fractured along the subject matter rather than experience levels.
>
>   
James, I strongly agree with your point of view. Consider: as a Ruby 
programming beginner, and one about to write my first Cucumber feature 
(with RSpec launching to follow soon after), I monitor the Ruby-Talk 
discussion list daily. I manage the volume by having the posted 
displayed in threaded form. I filter all traffic for the list as a whole 
to its own folder. When an thread of interest to me comes up, I flag it, 
and come back to it later. Yesterday, there were a total of 6 new 
threads. Today, so far, there have been two. All other traffic has gone 
to other threads, started earlier, and I've already marked them as 
interesting to me or not. Problem solved.

So, may I humbly suggest that people simply use better the email 
management tools they already have at their disposal?

I do NOT want to split the community here at RSpec/Cucumber into 
fragments. I'd learn less, and I wouldn't have as good a contact with 
the natural diversity that's here. That diversity is interesting, 
entertaining, and rather often education to me, and most likely to 
others as well.

As you said, this is simply not a high volume list. I don't think we 
really have a problem here.
t.

-- 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Cloyd, MS MA, LMHC - Private practice Psychotherapist
Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A: (360) 920-1226
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<< TomCloyd.com >> (website) 
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