13 Jan
2009
13 Jan
'09
8 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 10:45 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Dr. Dobbs to cease?
In article <FF6AB92D97A23A409701CDBF66F03FCD2A56EDE1 at 505fuji>,
Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> writes:
I disagree, and that's part of my original comment. That 'mediation' you
denigrate is not terribly unlike what academic journals call 'peer review' - not
just any goofball could shoot off his mouth. With the 'dead tree magazines' I
knew there was some sort of editorial oversight, which raised the signal-to-noise ratio
and lowered the waste of my time. And with multiple publications, I could choose my
'filter factor.' By comparison, it isn't at all uncommon for mailing list
threads to get hijacked by various forms of distraction, and the blog has nowhere near the
level of accountability to, well, anything.
The open communication of the 'net and the focused delivery of a publication are two
complementary concepts, and I'm sorry to see one of them apparently dying off.
I'm not complaining, but it is a touch sad
that DDJ, C Users Journal
and
the like are part of history. It was fun to see
people argue about
the
syntax of some obscure C construct or the virtues
of one architecture
over another, and even more fun to weigh in. -- Ian
The same experience exists today, its called the 'net. Whether its
mailing lists, or comp.lang.c++, or a blog, the social interaction is
still there -- its just not mediated by a dead tree magazine. We
don't *need* the magazines as a springboard for our conversations
anymore -- we can talk to each other directly. The community of
programmers is more alive than ever from where I sit, its just not
happening on the pages of dead tree magazines like BYTE or DDJ.
--