DLR - where is the community?

Ruby IronRuby
1

Hi,
DLR is nice, but what is still missing is “community”. I think there is
plenty of people trying DLR, but there is no good source for information
except some blogs. What I am really missing is some community forum,
where all the developers can look for solutions and discuss their
problems. Now it looks those people are spread over the Internet and
there is no place for discussion yet … or maybe I am wrong and I just
didn’t find it.

Anyway if there is not such place, would be possible to make at least
category on MSDN forums for DLR?

PS: Sorry for asking this here, but this forum looks like the closest
one to DLR topic :]

2

2008/2/28, Ales S. [email protected]:

Hi,
DLR is nice, but what is still missing is “community”. I think there is
plenty of people trying DLR, but there is no good source for information
except some blogs. What I am really missing is some community forum,
where all the developers can look for solutions and discuss their
problems. Now it looks those people are spread over the Internet and
there is no place for discussion yet … or maybe I am wrong and I just
didn’t find it.

Eh, this list is a such forum? And IronPython list.

Anyway if there is not such place, would be possible to make at least
category on MSDN forums for DLR?

I much prefer mailing lists to forums.

3

Sanghyeon S. wrote:

2008/2/28, Ales S. [email protected]:

Hi,
DLR is nice, but what is still missing is “community”. I think there is
plenty of people trying DLR, but there is no good source for information
except some blogs. What I am really missing is some community forum,
where all the developers can look for solutions and discuss their
problems. Now it looks those people are spread over the Internet and
there is no place for discussion yet … or maybe I am wrong and I just
didn’t find it.

Eh, this list is a such forum? And IronPython list.

Anyway if there is not such place, would be possible to make at least
category on MSDN forums for DLR?

I much prefer mailing lists to forums.

As you said, here it is about IronPhyton. Most of questions are what
doesn’t work in IronPhyton, what works differently then expected, etc …
but not about building languages on DLR, using DLR AST and so on …

4

Hello!

i was thinking about same (“where to ask DLR specific questions”) few
days
ago while reading DLR articles on Tomas R.'s weblog (btw, thanks
for
good articles, Tomas… )

maybe it would be a good idea have separate DLR mailing list or forum
(for
DLR specific language agnostic questions). But i am afraid that this is
a
same sort of decision as if there should be separate codebase for DLR or
not.

I would prefer separate mailing lists and separate codebase, but I
understand that it is not easy decision.

thanks,
Slavo.

5

Yes, it is not an easy decision without knowing the what activity level
to expect. If there are not enough people active on the mailing list, it
reduces the value to the participants since their questions will not be
answered quickly. So specialized mailing lists are necessarily the right
answer. A separate codebase has significant disadvantages - if you want
to find matching versions of IronRuby or IronPython to see how they use
the DLR, you will have a hard time.

Do start using the IronRuby or IronPython mailing lists for DLR
questions. If the volume of DLR-specific questions goes up, that will
make it easier to decide to create a separate mailing list.

From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Slavo F.
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 5:21 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Ironruby-core] DLR - where is the community?

Hello!

i was thinking about same (“where to ask DLR specific questions”) few
days ago while reading DLR articles on Tomas R.'s weblog (btw,
thanks for good articles, Tomas… )

maybe it would be a good idea have separate DLR mailing list or forum
(for DLR specific language agnostic questions). But i am afraid that
this is a same sort of decision as if there should be separate codebase
for DLR or not.

I would prefer separate mailing lists and separate codebase, but I
understand that it is not easy decision.

thanks,
Slavo.
On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 2:04 PM, Sanghyeon S.
<[email protected]mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
2008/2/28, Ales S.
<[email protected]mailto:[email protected]>:

Hi,
DLR is nice, but what is still missing is “community”. I think there is
plenty of people trying DLR, but there is no good source for information
except some blogs. What I am really missing is some community forum,
where all the developers can look for solutions and discuss their
problems. Now it looks those people are spread over the Internet and
there is no place for discussion yet … or maybe I am wrong and I just
didn’t find it.
Eh, this list is a such forum? And IronPython list.

Anyway if there is not such place, would be possible to make at least
category on MSDN forums for DLR?
I much prefer mailing lists to forums.

–
Seo S.

6

A lot of the folks on the IronRuby and IronPython mailing lists would
also be interested in DLR questions. Creating a separate forum will make
it harder for them to hear about the DLR.

That said, a separate MSDN forum does sound interesting and I will look
into that. Its unlikely to happen right away though. Again, this is a
theoretical discussion at the moment about which approach is best, and
seeing an increase in the volume of DLR related questions on the
IronRuby and IronPython mailing lists would definitely make it easier to
push for a separate DLR forum.

I would encourage folks interested in the DLR to start asking questions
about it. If there is feedback about features required to support other
languages, now is the time to start bringing that up.

7

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:00:45 -0700, Shri B.
[email protected]
wrote:

If the volume of DLR-specific questions goes up, that will make it
easier to decide to create a separate mailing list.

On the contrary I would argue that people will be more apt to asked DLR
specific questions to a DLR specific list. By force of “Not a question
related to X, please ask question on list Y”-influenced habit questions
will go unasked if people feel they won’t be well received on any given
dev-list.

–
/M:D

M. David P.
Co-Founder & Chief Architect, 3rd&Urban, LLC
Email: [email protected] | [email protected]
Mobile: (206) 418-9027
http://3rdandUrban.com | http://amp.fm |
M. David Peterson

8

Shri,

A lot of the folks on the IronRuby and IronPython mailing lists would also be interested in DLR questions.
Creating a separate forum will make it harder for them to hear about the DLR.

True, but it might also mean that those purely interested in IronRuby
and IronPython and not the DLR implementation details from people
writing compilers for other languages won’t be bothered by it. From
my point of view, a lot of whether this makes sense or not depends on
whether MS wants to encourage a community around the DLR and having
external folks produce language implementations on it, or if it’s
mostly considered an implementation detail for MS’ own languages.

That said, a separate MSDN forum does sound interesting and I will look into that.

God, please no. The MSDN forums are awful!

Its unlikely to happen right away though. Again, this is a theoretical discussion at the moment
about which approach is best, and seeing an increase in the volume of DLR related questions
on the IronRuby and IronPython mailing lists would definitely make it easier to push for a separate DLR forum.

It might be a chicken and egg kind of problem. I bet many more people
would be less hesitant about asking DLR questions if there was a forum
for it.