On 4/1/14, 4:33 PM, Brad Anderson wrote:
> On Tuesday, 1 April 2014 at 23:30:02 UTC, Meta wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 1 April 2014 at 23:28:31 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:
>>> Looks good.
>>>
>>> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2fjk2ti/a_community_newsletter_for_d
>>>
>>>
>>> Vote up, everyone!
>>
>> Please remove this, as I explicitly asked it not to be posted yet.
>
> Seemed like an appropriate day to make this joke :). No removal needed
> (it's not a real link).

Got a good laugh! -- Andrei

On Wednesday, 2 April 2014 at 00:25:08 UTC, Mike wrote:
> I think the email will work well, but it might also be nice to have a public document that contributors could edit directly.  It might save you some cutting/pasting/word-smithing time.  Maybe then all you would need to do is perform a final edit.  Wiki or Github, mabye? (or maybe not)

I entertained the idea of hosting it on GitHub. This would make "moderation" of submissions in the form of pull requests fairly simple. The drawback of this, however, is that anyone can see each issue long before it is finished, diminishing the "impact" of the actual release. Maybe this isn't a huge problem, though.


> If you (us?) can keep it up every week, that would be nice.  But if it starts with weekly, beware the commitment and readers' expectations.

Seeing as I have never maintained something like this before, maybe it *would* be best to start out bi-weekly. I do not have a clear idea of how much work subsequent issues will take. This is more or less unknown territory for me.


> Having to do the same thing every week can get old, too.  Again, I think some way for the general D public to contribute directly would help with this, but I know that has the potential to become a management nightmare in itself.

With a few other volunteers, we could take turns round-robin style. It depends on who else wants to volunteer their time, I guess. The more I think about having a community-contributed list on Github, the more I like it, but that seems to conflict with why I'm doing this in the first place, i.e., nobody else wants to do it.


> I hate to suggest things I can't do myself, but a stats section might be nice.  For example:
> x bugs opened
> x bugs closed
> x pull requests submitted
> x pull requests merged
> x pull requests closed
> x pull request waiting for Walter/Andrei ;-)
> etc...

That is a good idea, but it would be extremely tedious and annoying to do by hand.

> I've seen some talent here in this community make some really fantastic tools, and maybe this is something someone could throw together easily and just execute once a week.

If somebody wants to generate these statistics, I will be more than happy to include them.


> What are your plans for publication and distribution?
> And where will they be stored so one could reminisce in nostalgia?

Publication is probably too formal of a word. TWiR does it blog-style, hosting it on GitHub pages, and I don't see any reason why I shouldn't do the same.

On 4/1/14, 4:30 PM, Meta wrote:
> On Tuesday, 1 April 2014 at 23:28:31 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:
>> Looks good.
>>
>> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2fjk2ti/a_community_newsletter_for_d
>>
>>
>> Vote up, everyone!
>
> Please remove this, as I explicitly asked it not to be posted yet.

Let's also note how incredibly polite this was! -- Andrei

On Wednesday, 2 April 2014 at 00:26:58 UTC, bearophile wrote:
> Looks quite nice. But I suggest to avoid this wizbang style of writing, and use one more fit for a technical newsletter:

I'm worried about it being too dry, as it's really just regurgitating information that's already freely available and probably has already been read by a lot of people who watch the newsgroup/Github. Also, we have to think about the image that the D community projects, so I'd like to keep a friendly and informal tone. However, perhaps the machine metaphor is a bit too poetic/pretentious.


> To reduce the probability of such delays, and to make you less bored of this work in the following years, I suggest to make your work (to create a post) as fast as possible and as much automatic as possible. This means creating scripts for the automatic upload, etc.

I agree. The problem is that I'm not entirely sure what I need currently, and I suspect that I won't know until I'm in the thick of things. It's good to keep in mind, however, that this is not meant to be a big professionally-produced undertaking (unless other people want to contribute and make it professional). I'm only one person, after all, so I do not want to be overly ambitious in scope.

On 4/1/14, 4:25 PM, Meta wrote:
> Thanks to an unexpected free afternoon due to a brutal spring blizzard,
> and large amount of caffeine, I've come up with an initial draft of a D
> newsletter. It's tentatively named "What's New in D", and it's purpose
> is to aggregate the important community news in one place, as well as to
> give D some well-deserved publicity.

This is awesome. I intentionally have little to say on the content proper because of the considerations that follow.

1. As one who led similar efforts (magazine columns etc) I concur that this is a marathon more than a jog.

2. Because of that, make sure whatever you do you get satisfaction from it. That means enjoying freedom to choose content and format etc. Do it the way it pleases you, of course with feedback from the community since you'll derive a good fraction of your enjoyment from the positive feedback.

3. Choose a pace that works for you, and try to keep it.

4. Accept contributions and contributors, but try to give the newsletter personality by writing it in your "voice".


Andrei

Andrei Alexandrescu:

> Let's also note how incredibly polite this was! -- Andrei

I agree. Meta is good.

Bye,
bearophile

On Wednesday, 2 April 2014 at 00:56:29 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 4/1/14, 4:30 PM, Meta wrote:
>>
>> Please remove this, as I explicitly asked it not to be posted yet.
>
> Let's also note how incredibly polite this was! -- Andrei

+1.  Indeed!

On Wednesday, 2 April 2014 at 01:05:31 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 4/1/14, 4:25 PM, Meta wrote:
>
> This is awesome. I intentionally have little to say on the content proper because of the considerations that follow.
>
> 1. As one who led similar efforts (magazine columns etc) I concur that this is a marathon more than a jog.
>
> 2. Because of that, make sure whatever you do you get satisfaction from it. That means enjoying freedom to choose content and format etc. Do it the way it pleases you, of course with feedback from the community since you'll derive a good fraction of your enjoyment from the positive feedback.
>
> 3. Choose a pace that works for you, and try to keep it.
>
> 4. Accept contributions and contributors, but try to give the newsletter personality by writing it in your "voice".
>
>
> Andrei

Best advice I've read in years!  Could easily be applied to any new undertaking.

On Wednesday, 2 April 2014 at 01:05:31 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> This is awesome. I intentionally have little to say on the content proper because of the considerations that follow.
>
> 1. As one who led similar efforts (magazine columns etc) I concur that this is a marathon more than a jog.
>
> 2. Because of that, make sure whatever you do you get satisfaction from it. That means enjoying freedom to choose content and format etc. Do it the way it pleases you, of course with feedback from the community since you'll derive a good fraction of your enjoyment from the positive feedback.
>
> 3. Choose a pace that works for you, and try to keep it.
>
> 4. Accept contributions and contributors, but try to give the newsletter personality by writing it in your "voice".

I will keep this in mind. Do you have any specific tips on "hidden" difficulties that come up?

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 19:33:47 -0400, Brad Anderson <eco@gnuk.net> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 1 April 2014 at 23:30:02 UTC, Meta wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 1 April 2014 at 23:28:31 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:
>>> Looks good.
>>>
>>> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2fjk2ti/a_community_newsletter_for_d
>>>
>>> Vote up, everyone!
>>
>> Please remove this, as I explicitly asked it not to be posted yet.
>
> Seemed like an appropriate day to make this joke :). No removal needed (it's not a real link).

I've been on alert all day today. This still got me :)

-Steve