I'm writing again to report on the community's interest in my previous post. Two people expressed an interest in providing modest amounts of time to make a community-supported Clojure magazine (or magazine-like entity) happen; one of them has significant technical editing skills himself. So we've got the editorial requirements covered. The only question is, who's interested in contributing some content? Remember, I did say "community-supported."
One of these guys said it very well: "I'd find it very rewarding to get something up and running that serves as an accepted, community- reviewed publication platform." That would be a great thing for the Clojure community to have. Among other benefits, it would increase the overall skill of the community (leading to better software), and it would increase the stature of Clojure itself to the larger community of programmers. "But why bother?" you may ask. "People already publish on their own blogs, and anyone can find them." True enough--but most bloggers are jotting something down quickly before they get back to what they really want to do, which is coding. As a result, they assume that the reader will be like them: in programming expertise, in Clojure-specific knowledge (what, you don't know the ring-session-riak API by heart?), or both. This makes some readers frustrated, and frustrated readers find something easier to read. On the other hand, articles that have been improved through the interventions of an editor (who accepts some articles but not others, asks the author for clarifications, rewrites existing text to increase clarity, adds missing info or tutorial information, etc.), are far more useful, and to more readers. An editor will work with you to make your article easier to read and understand. An editor can help you 'open up' your article to maximize the chance that the reader, who is as intelligent as you but perhaps less well-informed about your subject material, will stick with your article to the end, learn from your greater expertise, and become a more skillful member of the Clojure community. In other words, an editor will help you improve your article and get more recognition for your skill and hard work." <RANT /> ##### THE BOTTOM LINE ##### I want to hear from you if you'd be interested in reading professionally-edited content about Clojure. This would be free to all and would be (unless somebody comes up with a better idea) published at the Getting Clojure website, http://www.GettingClojure.com. (As an example, you can read my article on Clojure proxies, at http://www.gettingclojure.com/articles:extending-java-classes-using-proxy.) If you do write, please tell me what you'd find interesting enough to be worth *your* time. Here are some possibilities: * articles, with working code * short, interesting tidbits, suitable for infograzing * interviews with Clojurians of note * opinion pieces * code walkthroughs * overviews of selected Clojure frameworks/libraries * NEW! and IMPROVED! versions of existing Clojure blog entries * tutorials (at different levels of expertise) * collections of Clojure programming tips and techniques * Clojure jokes * a live webcam feed of Rich Hickey's hammock Better yet, suggest something that Seems Like a Good Idea to you. This is electronic publishing--we have access to blogs, wikis, code repositories, cloud-based program execution ... ! With a sufficiently involved community, we can do things that would cause a traditional, for-profit publisher to INSTANTLY VOID ALL WORKING MEMORY AND BEGIN CONSUMING HIS OWN FLESH LIKE A CRAZED ZOMBIE JACKAL! But I digress. Please post your comments at http://www.GettingClojure.com/forum/c-115769/a-getting-clojure-magazine, or (if that link goes wonky for some reason), the "A 'Getting Clojure' Magazine?" discussion in the Forums section of http://www.GettingClojure.com. Thank you for your time and attention. --greggw -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
