Re: new mailing list: perl6-general?

On Tue, Jun 14, 2005 at 03:54:45PM +0200, BÁRTHÁZI András wrote:
> I would have some general Perl6 programming questions. Where should I ask 
> them? It's not about language design, not about compiling/compilers and 
> even not related to the internals.
> 
> As more and more people will start hacking Perl6, I think, that it would 
> be useful to having a list for this.

As you mention, general Perl6 programming questions probably don't
belong on perl6-compiler, as that list is focused more on compiler
implementation issues (Perl6, Pugs, & PGE) than on "how does the
language work".

So, that leaves either perl6-language or a new list.  Personally I
could see it going either way -- even though general Perl6 programming
questions aren't directly about language design, it may still be
useful to language designers to see the types of questions that 
people are asking and to see how well the language design can work in
practice.  Or maybe that's not needed.  But I tend to lean away from
list proliferation where possible.

So, I'd suggest putting general questions about Perl 6 on perl6-language.  
In saying this, however, I think it's important to try to distinguish
questions about Perl 6 from questions about the various implementing
components such as Pugs, PGE, and any forthcoming Perl 6 compiler(s).
For some time these implementations will be only approximations of
the Perl 6 language design, so they're not authoritative as far
as testing understanding of Perl 6.  (But they are often very
illustrative and educational. :-)  So, questions like "XYZ doesn't
seem to work in Pugs or PGE" probably belong on perl6-compiler.

So, as a general rule of thumb, I'd say that if a question involves
getting something to actually run with the available Perl 6 tools,
then that question belongs on perl6-compiler.  Otherwise, perl6-language
(or a new list for that purpose) is the place to go.

Perhaps what we need is updated descriptions of the various mailing
lists on perl.org (http://dev.perl.org/perl6/lists/)?  I'll draft
some proposed changes to that page.

Pm