|
irclog.perlgeek.de/perl6book/today | source: github.com/perl6/book/ Set by moderator on 8 March 2011. |
|||
|
07:52
sjn joined
10:43
fhelmberger left
|
|||
| sjn | o/ | 13:26 | |
| anyone alive here? :) | |||
| moritz_ | notreally | ||
| sjn | ah, only zombies here then... | ||
| moritz_ | zombies and bots | 13:27 | |
| sjn had a talk with Masak and Allison last week, about a Perl6 book :) | |||
| moritz_ | 4 bots, 6 zombies, one human | ||
| sjn | yay! | ||
| moritz_ | sjn: a summary would be very welcome | ||
| sjn | moritz_: I proposed that We[TM] (you know, "The Volunteers") spend some time formulating a basic programming introduction book with Perl6 | 13:28 | |
| Masak's all up for it, and is willing to start blogging content for it starting this summer | 13:29 | ||
| Allison is willing to put some of her publishing resources behind it | |||
| and I'm in it for the purpose of making my own project (Kaizendo) a tool for helping this happen | 13:30 | ||
| moritz_ weeps | |||
| sjn | :) | ||
| yeah, it's horrible :) | |||
| moritz_ | we haven't even printed the first book | ||
| sjn | moritz_: no worries | 13:31 | |
| here's what we talked about | |||
| 1) keep working on the existing book, and make it the reference we want it to be | |||
| moritz_ | waitwaitwait | 13:32 | |
| sjn | 2) make an alternative version of that text that is specifically suited for teaching kids, based on 1) | ||
| moritz_ | we are talking about "Using Perl 6" as the "existing book", right? | ||
| sjn | good question :) | 13:33 | |
| maybe not? | |||
| moritz_ | that was never intended to be a reference | ||
| sjn | moritz_: I'm really here to find out | ||
| moritz_ | allison has that very old "Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials", which was open-sourced | ||
| and partially updated by me and other people | 13:34 | ||
| sjn | there's a wikibook project going on too, right?= | 13:35 | |
| moritz_ | I think by whiteknight, yes | ||
| no idea how active that is | |||
| I've looked over it and fixed the most obvious results... | |||
| it's clear that a Perl 6 book should better be written by somebody actually using Perl 6 :-) | 13:36 | ||
| sjn | well, if there's a copyleft license on that, then it should be fixable | ||
| sjn is keen to help make this happen, specifically by finding people to help, and by making the editing process easier | 13:37 | ||
| moritz_ | I welcome your enthusiasm, but I personally won't do anything for it before we get "Using Perl 6" gets printed | 13:38 | |
| priorities etc. | |||
| sjn has no illusions that this is something that will be finished overnights, so at the moment I'm asking if you (and anyone else who cares) is interested in making something like this happen | |||
| moritz_: what's the license on that? | 13:39 | ||
| cc-by-sa-nc? | |||
| moritz_ | yes | ||
| sjn | ok, cool | ||
| moritz_ | we might drop the -nc in future | ||
| sjn | en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Perl_6_Programming is cc-by-sa | 13:40 | |
| well, there's still opportunity for some cooperation here :) | 13:41 | ||
| and one way is if we find a good outline for the books | 13:42 | ||
| one that covers all the important bits in a sensible sequence | |||
| and that we all can use as a basis for the narrative | 13:44 | ||
| moritz_ will ask masak which existing book was meant | |||
| sjn | moritz_: sure, get him in here :) | 13:45 | |
| moritz_: on that note, I see that the readme says "t will be some kind of example-driven introduction to Perl 6, and at | |||
| the same time showing off the reasons why we love that language." | 13:46 | ||
| +I | |||
| Which I think is a good start for an introductory book as any other | |||
| moritz_ | except that the audience of "Using Perl 6" is people who already know how to program in other languages | 13:48 | |
| which I think is mentioned in the preface, but not in the README | |||
| sjn | moritz_: right | ||
| moritz_: on that note, have you looked into what I'm trying to do with my project? (the goal with my project is to address exactly the problem you're pointing at) | 13:49 | ||
| moritz_ | sjn: I was at your presentation at YAPC::EU in Pisa | ||
| sjn | right | ||
| you also put a logging bot in our channel :) | 13:50 | ||
| just don't know if you remember what the project was about | |||
| moritz_ | yes I do :-) | 13:51 | |
| sjn | well, if you think about the goals there, the abstract version is "make textbooks that tell one story, but in different ways" | 13:52 | |
| moritz_: your project is one way, aimed at people who know programming :) | |||
| what I'm proposing is taking that work, and adding another aspect to it | 13:53 | ||
| moritz_ | I kinda thought of it as two different stories so far | ||
| but I can see your POV too | |||
| sjn | an aspect that's suited for kids who can't program | ||
| (and with that, get a chance at putting Perl6 into curriculums :D) | |||
| anyhoo, think about it a little | 13:55 | ||
| moritz_ | will do | ||
| sjn | I think if we go for this, there's a LOT of cool possibilities here :) | 13:56 | |
| oh, and do talk with masak and allison about it | 13:58 | ||
| sjn hasn't talked with jnthn or pmichaud about it though | 13:59 | ||
| moritz_: btw, what do you mean with "thought of it as two different stories"? | 14:00 | ||
| moritz_ | sjn: have you ever had the fortune to attend a math class at a university? | 14:01 | |
| sjn | yes | ||
| moritz_ | to me it felt like a totally different story than school math | ||
| not just a story that's told with a bit more rigour :-) | |||
| sjn | yes, it is | ||
| moritz_ | my thoughts on teaching Perl 6 to beginners vs. to experienced programmers | 14:02 | |
| are similar | |||
| to the math story | |||
| to beginners, you basically teach programming, and use Perl 6 as a tool | 14:03 | ||
| sjn | exactly | ||
| moritz_ | "Using Perl 6" tries to teach Perl 6 to somebody who already knows programming | ||
| sounds like a different story to me | |||
| sjn | yeah, you kan skip a lot of the introductory language | ||
| "just the facts, m'am" | 14:04 | ||
| moritz_ | yes, but it's the fact that differ | ||
| sjn | really? | ||
| moritz_ | yes | ||
| sjn | in what way? | ||
| moritz_ | I tried to explain it above, I'll try to come up with a different way | 14:05 | |
| sjn | in my mind, it's the stories that convey the facts, that differ | ||
| say() works the same way in either case | |||
| moritz_ | in an introductory book, "how do you program at all" is a large part of the facts | 14:06 | |
| which we completely omit in "Using Perl 6" | |||
| sjn | ok, what (that isn't prose or descriptional language) is added in the introductory text? | 14:08 | |
| historic background? | 14:09 | ||
| homework? | |||
| moritz_ | explaning the concept of variables | ||
| lexical scopes in detail | 14:10 | ||
| recursion | |||
| arrays | |||
| hashes | |||
| general programming techniques | |||
| conditionals | |||
| loops | |||
| debugging | |||
| sjn | so you're not going to talk about those in "Using Perl 6"? | ||
| not even mention those? | 14:11 | ||
| moritz_ | just in the sense "here is how you access arrays and hashes" | ||
| sjn | right | ||
| moritz_ | and not "what is an array? what do I need it for? when would I use an array vs. a hash vs. a scalar?" | ||
| sjn | is it feasible to structure a text that you could _either_ have the "here's how you use arrays" version of the text, _or_ an in-depth description of how you can use them? | 14:12 | |
| ...and still keep the over-all narrative? | 14:13 | ||
| moritz_ | I honestly don't know | ||
| sjn | (that would of course mean that the paragraph introducing hashes would perhaps be 10 paragraphs in the introductory text) | ||
| moritz_ | for one the terser style covers many more topics in a chapter | ||
| so you'd need a different structure if you want managable chapter sizes | 14:14 | ||
| sjn | maybe? | ||
| sjn has no problems with very short chapters | |||
| moritz_ | just look at the "basics" chapters in "Using Perl 6" and tell me how many chapters that would be in the introductory chapter | ||
| and it's in one chapter not because we want long chapters, but because we actually take that long to explain the example | 14:15 | ||
| ok, a shorter example might be used | |||
| but you see why I'm not sure if it's possible - it might very well be, I just don't see it yet | |||
| sjn | moritz_: my proposal is to try make it happen :) | 14:16 | |
| figure out what's necessary to make it possible | |||
| build a tool that makes the possible easy :) | 14:17 | ||
| moritz_ | and my response is "sure, but I won't help before UP6 is printed" :-) | ||
| sjn | ah, so talking about outlines and such isn't something that you're willing to do? :-/ | 14:18 | |
| moritz_ | depends on how much talking :-) | ||
| sjn | well, the goal is to find the smallest sensible outline that both work for the UP6 book and it's introductory cousin | 14:19 | |
| and then write those in parallel | |||
| you keep writing UP6, with the help you can find, and get another version of the book developed at the same time | 14:20 | ||
| moritz_ | that's nice and all, but so far I can't see how we'll get two books done in parallel if we can't manage one | ||
| sjn | (there's another refinement of my proposal) | ||
| moritz_ | unless it's by influx of new helpers, of course | ||
| sjn | moritz_: there's where I'd like to help | 14:21 | |
| by 1) putting the editing/improvement process on a webpage, and | |||
| 2) create buzz around the two books (which should be easy, since this concept has a smidgeon of novelty to it) | 14:22 | ||
| BUT, doing this is rather hard if I don't have your buy-in :-/ | |||
| and the other's in the authors.pod | 14:23 | ||
| (it's not only hard because doing a crazy thing like this depends on everyone having an idea that it's something we'd like to do, but also because writing books isn't very sexy, and a rather difficult activity to "sell") | 14:24 | ||
| moritz_ | I hope you don't find it too discouraging that I'm still skeptical | 14:27 | |
| because buzz and a pretty editing interface doesn't generate more people that know Perl 6 well enough to write a book about it | |||
| sure, people can learn it, but IMHO you need to know a language to some depth to be able to teach it well | 14:28 | ||
| sjn | moritz_: kaizendo-pretty-editing-interface is about creating a dialogue between the people-that-know and the people-that-read :) | ||
| moritz_ | (which I don't know if I've reached it yet, but there are just few others that have) | ||
| sjn | so no, I'm not promising more editors, I'm promising more people to give you feedback | 14:29 | |
| (at least, that's my goal :) | |||
| and as with any other community bootstrapping process, it really doesn't matter which end you start with (either the community or the "know-it's"), it only matter _that_ someone starts | 14:30 | ||
| and keeps at it | 14:31 | ||
| and does what's necessary to create attention | |||
| and as with any other such venture, the more (ambition * success) you have, the more people you can pull in :) | 14:32 | ||
| sjn proposes to up the ambition level a little (maybe by about 100% or so) and help with the success bit | 14:33 | ||
| maybe this will fail, we'll bomb out, burn out and just make asses out of ourselves, but at least that's a soft failure :) | 14:34 | ||
| it's minor damage - especially if the attempt at doing this creates (temporary) a little more activity so that just UP6 gets a small boos | 14:35 | ||
| boost* | |||
| hey, no commit messages in this channel? :) | 15:56 | ||
| moritz_ | should be | 15:57 | |
| doesn't seem to work | |||
| sjn | hm | 15:58 | |
| dalek | ok: 1ad574f | duff++ | src/classes-and-objects.pod: [classes] rewording |
||
| ok: edeee38 | (Patrick Donelan)++ | src/roles.pod: s/does affect/does not affect/ |
|||
| ok: d347870 | moritz++ | TODO: add a TODO file. Because we have much to do :-) |
|||
| moritz_ | sjn: I didn't manage to spell the channel correctly :/ | 15:59 | |
| sjn | aah | ||
| moritz_: btw, just to get the noodles cooking, I've mucked around a little in the outline: github.com/sjn/book/blob/master/outline.pod | 16:02 | ||
| I'm thinking atm that for figuring out what's useful in a book, it's good to start out by listing the essentials | 16:04 | ||
| then we can easier add/reorder if we find something's missing | |||
| sjn tries to the build environment up and running | 16:07 | ||
| moritz_ | fwiw if you don't want to set up the whole latex stuff, you can also use 'make html' | 16:10 | |
| sjn | thanks ^^ | ||
| moritz_: github.com/sjn/book/commit/9ec5bea...ea428d2091 | 16:23 | ||
| sjn looks at Pod::PseudoPod | 16:50 | ||
| PerlJam | sjn++ | 16:51 | |
| sjn: why committing to your fork rather than the main repo? Just to manage your own changesets? | |||
| sjn | PerlJam: mostly, yes | ||
| also, I don't want to commit my crazy stuff to the main repo before I have buy-in :) | 16:52 | ||
| and, I don't think I have access | |||
| PerlJam | ah, indeed you do not. | 16:53 | |
| let's see if I remember how to talk to the bot (or which bot to talk to) | 16:54 | ||
| hugme: add sjn to perl6 | 16:55 | ||
| hugme hugs sjn. Welcome to the perl6 github organization | |||
| sjn | yay! \\o/ | 16:56 | |
| btw, how does one find out who's on that list? | 16:57 | ||
| nvm, link was in welcome mail that just arrived | 17:01 | ||
| github.com/organizations/perl6/teams/14366 | |||
| moritz_ | hugme: add sjn to book | 17:07 | |
| hugme | moritz_: ERROR: Can't add sjn to book: not authorized | ||
| moritz_ | excuse me? | ||
| sjn: the book repo still has a separate access list -- you have push access now | 17:08 | ||
| sjn | moritz_: thanks ^^ | 17:47 | |