[plt-scheme] Ryan's dissertation

On Apr 15, John Clements wrote:
> On Apr 15, 2010, at 6:53 AM, Noel Welsh wrote:
> 
> > Since the wiki and blog are both pull mechanisms -- that is, they
> > require someone to subscribe to receive content -- I'm of the
> > opinion it's better to concentrate your efforts in one of them
> > rather than asking your readers to subscribe to two channels.

(That's why I personally insist on channeling all of my inputs through
email...)


> > I would also take the blog post as an opportunity discuss the
> > results in an informal way and to give context that can be
> > difficult in a paper.
> 
> Feh.  I thought about most of these, and I agree that none of them
> seem quite right... Actually, Eli, I think that the PLT Blog might
> be the right place after all (at 1 post per paper).  The point of
> the PLT blog, IIRC, is not just to be like an announcements mailing
> list; when it was founded, I think it was intended to be a typical
> "here's what we're thinking about, blather blather" blog; that is, a
> way for interested parties to keep up on what's going on with PLT.

IMO, the blog *is* for that kind of stuff -- definitely not for
release announcements.  In fact, I wasn't too happy to put them there,
since they tend to drown those bits -- but eventually I did because
blogs seem to be an effective advertising mechanism.

But that ("blather blather" posts) is not what paper posts are about.
They are way more techincal, and not appealing to a general crowd that
can find it interesting as is (modulo those announcements!).  So my
guess is that these bad results will happen:
* These posts will swamp it to the point of reducing the effectiveness
  of "normal" posts -- there's much more papers than there are posts
  on the blog.  People who enjoy the current posts are probably going
  to unsubscribe as a result.
* Having such posts will discourage the current kind of posts.  (For
  example, I'm not sure that I'd post that hygiene thing if it came
  close to some paper on macros.)
* Being the recent one (=> appear on the front page of the blog) is
  precious time for a post, and these posts will come in quick
  bunches.

So maybe the right solution is a to have an academic plt blog?  That
could serve a different purpose and then there's none of the above
problems.

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!