In article <OF1CC1C393.2F747D32-ON852569D0.006BE02C / raleigh.ibm.com>,
"Conrad Schneiker" <schneik / us.ibm.com> wrote:

> 
> Isn't that what Usenet is for?  Ummm, I don't mean stupid questions,
> specifically :-)  but (among other things) questions and answers. 
> 
> Absolutely!
> 
> Look at comp.lang.perl.misc or comp.lang.tcl. These are for *everyone's*
>  questions, not just for experts. 
> 
> Part of what makes newsgroups useful bootstrapping tools is that they 
> cater to questions at *all* levels of expertise, from a wide range of 
> programming perspectives. Also in modern and comparatively large 
> languages, people may be beginners in some areas of the language, but
> not  in others, so there is no convenient division, and so most people
> would  rapidly need to follow at least 2 newsgroups in that case anyway.
>  Moreover, even experts can learn by seeing how other experts answer 
> beginner questions. So you would undermine much of the utility and
> synergy
>  of newsgroups (or whatever) by trying to divide them up by beginner / 
> expert (versus technical interest area, e.g. application-level
> development

Thank You, Conrad,

Not being a full-time programmer, but more of a hobbyist and
working as a Tech Sales person in a development shop. I really
appreciate groups like this, smalltalk, and python to get a feel for
where everything is really going and to hear the ideas and solutions
of the actual developers of the these languages.

Splitting the group or having a private devel list takes away a lot
from people like me and beginners in general. It's nice to see Matz
and others take the time to help out everyone and for everyone
to have access to good people such as all of you. 

Please don't split the list yet...

And now I'll go back to lurking.

Sincerely,
John C.