My history with http://learn.perl.org/
is quite long. When the site was
first set up, I suggested that a link be placed to my "Perl for Perl
Newbies" lecture series. Since then a link was not placed to it, and to
similar online Perl tutorials there.
Frustrated from a lack of decent Perl portal, I started working on my own
Perl Beginners' Site. When the site was in intermediate condition, I sent
an announcement about it to use.perl.org. The "use Perl;" momderator
intercepted my message, and forwarded it to the beginners-workers mailing
list. After some discussion it was decided that I should do a redesign
of learn.perl.org and eventually replace the content there with a better
one.
After my beginners' site was in a finalized condition, I wrote to the
beginners-workers mailing list and received no reply. So, I tried to
subscribe there and also failed to do so. After I wrote to the list
administrator, I was informed that this is a closed list, which one cannot
subscribe to by automatic means (why?). I asked to be subscribed manually,
but I am not subscribed yet.
Seeing I had no choice I set up my site at http://perl-begin.berlios.de/
and sent another announcement to use.perl.org which was this time
accepted.
Since then, I received some useful input on the site from other people.
Most of the learn.perl.org problems were not resolved since this time. I
see several such problems:
1. The site has an ugly design. It is very unappealing visually.
2. No links to many important online resources such as tutorials, books,
article collections, mailing lists, web forums, etc.
3. Concentration on commercial books. Reviews of them appear right on
the front page of the site (where they don't belong) and the site as a
whole gives the impressions that they are required to learn Perl.
Compare this to other languages such as Python or PHP which can be easily
learned from online resources and it means we're in a poor state. I think
Perl can be learned from online resources alone, (at least from the
"Beginning Perl" book), but the site does not make it clear enough.
4. No source code for the site is available. Plus,
beginners-workers@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
are not responsive.
5. Pretty much unmaintained for a long time. While minor improvements were
done, the site as a whole remained in its poor state.
By contrast, http://perl-begin.berlios.de/
has none of these deficiencies.
Yet, it is not the big wigs' endorsed site.
This poor state cannot last too long without having a bad effect on the
community of newcomers. But how can I do anything about it, without
responsiveness from the beginners-workers?
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish shlomif@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
An apple a day will keep a doctor away. Two apples a day will keep two
doctors away.
Falk Fish
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