RE: Developing frameworks and applications in tandem and managing dependencies

Hi John,

>> No worries. To be honest I think email lists in general are a dying breed - the only one I know of that's thriving is accu-general (http://accu.org/index.php/mailinglists/).
>> 
>> The CodeProject Lounge is the other obvious hang out place - and that seems to be as busy as ever.
>
> I just want a niche edgy community loaded with smart and knowledgeable people like the OT list used to be. I don't want to drown in gigabytes of average content.

There's nothing unreasonable about that. I do think the places people hang out are changing though - social media (Facebook Groups, and to a lesser extent Twitter) has had a big impact.

The accu-general list seems to be an outlier in that regard, but that's probably because of the sort of folks who are on it.

> I'm reinventing myself as an "open source" programmer using LAMP (Linux,
Apache, MySQL and PHP) technology so I've joined the MediaWiki and
WordPress hackers lists, but in practice I don't keep up with them. The
whole idea of an "off-topic" list appeals to me, I don't like the idea
of topics being off limits in a conversation. I think a conversation
should just go where it flows naturally to.

I'm a bit like that with the TDD group. The volume of traffic is astonishing. By contrast, the vsnetaddin group (my particular area of specialism) is effectively dead.

An OT list like this is entirely reliant on interesting people being around and wanting to talk, so it's a bit of a chicken & egg thing really.

> I don't know why I hang out on a Windows programming list, I don't even
do Windows programming any more (except when I can't avoid it (I
actually wonder what the future will bring in that regard, will I
succeed as a LAMP developer or be forced back in to C# programming. I'm
in the process of negotiating with one of my clients now to rewrite
their whole LoB system currently on .NET/SQL Server in PHP/MySQL -- I
hope they come at it, I'm so much more productive in PHP than ASP.NET)). :P

We're still a Windows outfit, but Eclipse is slowly applying pressure on that front. Who knows what the future may bring...?

It's certainly challenging, and I certainly never expected to end up interfacing Java and C++ in a product which started out as a COM based Visual Studio plug-in. Interestingly, there's still no C# in the Visual Studio product - .NET Framework versioning restrictions mean that we've stuck entirely with native code within the VS environment.

> I have the mailing lists at ProgClub but one of the problems there is
that there are so few members with so many programming languages between
them. And it's small. And people don't have the time. Building
communities is a lot of hard work (but it is its own reward).

That's one of the reasons I like ACCU - the annual conference, local groups and mailing list mean there's a good sense of community there.

> They hey-day for the OT list was when everyone was learning C# together
but now everyone either knows C# inside out and backwards (they probably
even think they know what IDisposable is for) or isn't even using it any
more (like me).

I remember that!

> I hope mailing lists don't die, I much prefer them to web sites with
forum software. There's something egalitarian and conversational about
mailing lists that I enjoy.

I can sure appreciate that. Will the next generation, though?

> Anyway, I'll keep posting to the OT list wenever I can think of
something to talk about. Like subverting facebook by introducing
interloping baby boomers: http://faceboom.us/ :)
>
> I really should just do some actual work some time soon. :P

Go for it. Aside from a run at lunchtime, I've spent all day fiddling with custom control code (something we need to do to support the Visual Studio 2012 dark theme), while rescuing a failing disk on our build server - so the diversion has been more than welcome.

Have a great evening.




Kind Regards,

                Anna-Jayne Metcalfe
                Product Manager,
                Riverblade Limited

                http://www.riverblade.co.uk

               Twitter: @annajayne
               Skype: anna-jayne.metcalfe


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