On 2/20/07, James Edward Gray II <james / grayproductions.net> wrote:
> On Feb 19, 2007, at 7:11 AM, SonOfLilit wrote:
>
> > http://rubymentor.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?AurSarafAndSamantha
> >
> > This is an edited transcript of my discussions with Samantha this far.
>
> One of the downsides of a two-person chat, as opposed to asking a
> question here is that you don't get as much input.  I'm not saying
> that makes the mentoring idea bad, but I do think it's something we
> want to keep in mind.
>
> For example, in that transcript, Aur says:
>
> "YAML is really like XML... You can, if you want, do whatever XML
> thing you wanted but in YAML syntax..."
>
> I know the Ruby community is very pro YAML and really down on XML,
> but the fact remains that the have different purposes.  XML is a
> markup language.  It is for marking up content.  YAML is a data
> description language.  It's primarily used for serializing data into
> a human readable format.  These are different purposes.
>
> If you have trouble understanding the difference, try converting the
> home page of your web site into a reasonable YAML format.  It's a
> good exercise.
>
> I would likely favor XML as a format for my rñÔumé¬ though that point
> is certainly debatable.
>
> James Edward Gray II
>

I agree. But I think even when one is lead in the wrong direction
because of a mistake by the mentor, that direction might be a better
one than what he would get on the list.

I made a mistake there, but I gave her a template to think in, a way
to transition her thoughts from something she is familiar with. She
would have eventually found out exactly how wrong I was, but still it
would have taken her forward.

And when I opened our discussion, it was so that I would get such
feedback. I thought that I might have mistakes and although the
discussion itself is better in a group <=  4, it'd be great if someone
would later correct them :-)

So thanks :-)

Aur