[melbourne-pug] Melbourne Community

[Tennessee Leeuwenburg]

Thanks for the 2 strong votes of confidence.

I also vote for some form of peer-review. I'd love to not to that peer 
review myself, so getting the list to do it makes sense. I think it's 
(a) nice to have something of yours published and thought thoroughly 
about, and (b) interesting to see people's opinions of things. A 
mailing-list review is the easiest. We need a candidate piece of code + 
short article from the originator, in the form of "An abstract", "the 
code", "a discussion", "something chatty". I'm happy to take that as a 
loosely formatted email to myself, edit it in preparation for peer 
review, then take random mailing list emails and turn them into some 
kind of coherent narrative.

That could probably form the kernel of the bulletin, around which an 
e-zine could proudly grow. I believe we have the people here to do 
something that each of us would be pleased to be associated with, 
without it being an excessive burden on any one individual.

"In fact I would be happy to submit my own puny efforts and suffer 
enormous embarrassment in the process. The benefit to me would be 
incalculable."

Well, that would be great. Perhaps it would get to the point where 
people *wanted* to submit code for review in order to improve it. It 
could also spark discussion on hard problems, etc.

As an aside, I bought the ASPN Cookbook and have already found it 
invaluable. I find it much more useable than the online version, because 
of the degree of quality control and polish. I am at the point where I 
don't need a zen master to improve a whole program, I just need a better 
way to do X, because I can't think how do to X elegantly without a 
little help. Polish lets you "zoom in" on the most important component, 
and if you're good enough (most people are), you can take that and make 
your own code that much better. That's just my 2c, of course.

A piece on big issues in Open Source and/or Python would be neat, there 
are lots of things I could think of.

Cheers,
-T

Mike Dewhirst wrote:
> Maurice Ling wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm away from Melbourne for 7 months and will only be back next month, 
>> so I must admit that I've not been following up the happenings.
>>     
>
> I live here and have missed maybe one or two meetings and the last 
> meeting I did attend in Fitzroy didn't quite make a quorum :)
>
>   
>>> To that end, perhaps I could offer to collate and edit some articles
>>> into an e-magazine, perhaps bringing the first issue into existence
>>> around June 1? I would be happy to do put such a thing together, 
>>>       
>
> That is generous - standing ovation from me |||||||
>
> and if
>   
>>> anyone has any articles, cookbook recipes or even simple ideas, please
>>> feel free to contact me. The existence of a magazine of this kind might
>>> help people feel a bit more connected? Also, if any of the more
>>> long-standing members of MPUG would care to contribute an article on the
>>> history of mpug, or personal accounts, that would be great.
>>>
>>> If people think this is a bad idea, feel free to let me know that, also.
>>> Crocker's rules are fine by me.
>>>       
>
> Not in python space and especially not in Melbourne! We vote with our 
> feet :) See standing ovation above.
>
>   
>>>  
>>>
>>>       
>> I am largely in favour of this. I feel that in the OSS community, there 
>> is still a substantial lack of documentation and support for getting 
>> materials out into the public.
>>     
>
> I strongly agree. I'd like to see an open source knowledge transfer 
> system. More on that in a later discussion.
>
>   
>> This Melbourne Python Users' Bulletin (or letters) may be a collection 
>> of published case studies or personal experiences and tutorial-like 
>> articles. From an academic perspective, I believe that at least the 
>> technical contents needs to be correct before "publishing", so even 
>> though it is not a real academic journal, some forms of "technical 
>> peer-reviewing" needs to take place.
>>     
>
> Are you suggesting a mail-list review?
>
> Just thinking out loud, I reckon peer review is brilliant in terms of 
> you guys telling me where I'm going wrong when I show you what I'm 
> doing. That is because my objective (not necessarily anyone else's) is 
> to learn and improve my skills in a much more immediate time frame than 
> would be possible within any formal or academic peer review situation.
>
> Speaking for myself, I would strongly support mail-list review of 
> whatever gets offered. That is where I would gain the most knowledge. I 
> desperately want to see debate and constructive criticism of everyone's 
> offerings because I know that's how I'll learn. Just seeing the polished 
> outcome in the e-zine would not teach me as much. I'm not against polish 
> I just wanna learn.
>
> In fact I would be happy to submit my own puny efforts and suffer 
> enormous embarrassment in the process. The benefit to me would be 
> incalculable.
>
> There is definitely a niche for polished peer reviewed stuff. Just last 
> night I placed an order on Amazon for O'Reilly's Python Cookbook. The 
> cred of the reviewers looks impeccable to me and that is what persuaded 
> me to spend hard-earned money. Even so, I also visit the ASPN website 
> for recipes because I see peer review debate and commentary there as well.
>
> I think I'm saying we sacrifice bandwidth in the knowledge transfer game 
> when we add formality. IMHO, absolute best and broadest knowledge 
> transfer bandwidth is face-to-face discussion with whiteboards on hand. 
> Next best is either Professor Google or a mail list like this. The 
> narrowest knowledge transfer bandwidth is to buy and read a book. I'm 
> not saying anything about the quality of the knowledge - just the speed 
> and relevance at the time.
>
> A peer reviewed e-zine would be great. The peer review would be better 
> provided people got in and criticised with gusto. Maybe Crocker's Rules 
> should apply (:
>
>   
>> I've also just did an initial proposal to Firebird Foundation about 
>> starting a peer-reviewed journal. (Let's talk about this off-list if you 
>> are interested) 
>>     
>
> Don't be shy - I would be more comfortable being included (or lurking) 
> in the discussion.
>
> Run with it ...
>
> Mike
>
>
> But I think the administration and moderation are the same.
>   
>> I can offer my assistance to this e-zine as a form of associate editor 
>> or sort if needed.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Maurice
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>>
>>
>>     
>
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