On 22/12/05, A.M. Kuchling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:05:08 +0000, > Ed Singleton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Yes; I've long worried about this, but have no idea how to fix the > >> problem. Python users largely talk to other Python users, not to the > >> world at large. > > > > A good start would be for there to be a way for newbies to get heard > > more easily. > > I don't see the connection between "Python users talk too much to > other Python users" and "newbies don't get heard".
I wasn't particularly saying that there was a direct connection. You said you had been worrying about the problem of Python suffering from the "open source dysfunction" and had no idea how to fix it. I was suggesting one of the main ways of fixing it. In a little greater depth: Open source suffers from insularity because the community places a huge emphasis on reputation. Reputation is necessarily built-up over time and once people have reputation they tend to forget what it is like to not have it. (Additionally the type of person required to expend that much effort in building up reputation tends not to spend much time doing other, more "normal" things). Thus the people who are listened to the most in any OSS community are those who tend to know less about what it is like completely outside of the OSS world. These people tend to naturally gather to talk to each other, and they tend to stratify themselves, generally paying good attention to those above them and (in better communities like this one) those on the same level and just below. This leads to them insulating themselves even more from "reaching out to the real world". Luckily there is a large group of people who are involved in the community but have recently been participating in the real world. They have a strong understanding of what needs to be done to "reach out to the real world", because they themselves have just recently been reached out to. They are the newbs. Ed PS If you don't know how to reach out to the real world, then by definition you are not listening to newbs. PPS Some cool sayings about newbs: "The newbs shall inherit the earth" "The future's bright; the future's newb" "We don't inherit the OSS community from it's leaders; we merely borrow it from the newbs" -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
