Thanks for the feedback [LWN.net]

Thanks for the feedback

Posted Jun 24, 2004 19:09 UTC (Thu) by X-Nc (guest, #1661)
Parent article: The New Age of Programming

Hmm... I guess that I just wasn't as clear about what I was saying as I thought I was. It is interesting that most of the comments are focusing on the trees and missing the forrest, but again, that's likely my fault. My intent was to write something that would be fairly non-technical so that non-programmers or new programmers could follow it. Should I try and be more technical in future articles?

What kind of topics would readers of this section find interesting? Reviews? Point-of-view? Historical? I'm very interested in any feedback.

Joe

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feedback

Posted Jun 24, 2004 20:35 UTC (Thu) by nicku (subscriber, #777) [Link]

Many LWN subscribers are probably quite experienced programmers, and I would imagine that there would be a fairly small number of non-programmers here. Yes, I think it's right to say that we like technical stuff.

feedback

Posted Jun 25, 2004 0:52 UTC (Fri) by X-Nc (guest, #1661) [Link]

Can't argue with that. I'll try and make future articles more technical in depth. FWLIW, I have been writting for beginning or non-techie readers so much recently I have to practice on writing more meaty articles.

Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback

Posted Jun 25, 2004 11:23 UTC (Fri) by teddylwn (guest, #4318) [Link]

I don't think the problem is "technical" versus "non-technical".
The front page of lwn is sometimes technical, sometimes not, but it gives
a remarkably in-depth and concise account of events related to linux.
And the reader comments often start with "well said".

Your article reminded me of some of Jerry Pournelle's columns (sorry if I
misspelled his name) in Byte magazine in the mid-80'. It's entertaining,
but does not have real content. Not the kind of article I subscribe to lwn
for.

There are more than enough things going on in the "development" community,
some of them are not easy to follow from the project's web sites and
mailing lists. For example, I was disappointed by the lack of coverage of
the XFree86 - Xorg transition in X11 development.
Especially because there is little information filtering out, there is a
real opportunity for investigative journalism. Lwn could provide a real
service to the community by providing in-depth analysis on a few chosen
topics on the development page, in a way similar to the kernel page.
It does that from time to time already, for example I found the coverage
on SSA in gcc was excellent, but definitively not every week.

Thanks for the feedback

Posted Jun 25, 2004 15:22 UTC (Fri) by X-Nc (guest, #1661) [Link]

> Lwn could provide a real service to the community by providing
> in-depth analysis on a few chosen topics on the development page,
> in a way similar to the kernel page.

I'm sure that the LWN editors would love to have the kind of in depth coverage for all their sections that the kernel page has. Jon is deeply involved with kernel development so it's fairly easy for him to write about it. The other LWN editors, it is my understanding, are in a much less techie position and don't have the time to spend digging deep into the guts of some project or distro. As for the contributing authors, myself included, I'd love the chance to get into real meaty subjects and dig deeply into projects & distros. However, I only have a few minutes a week to devote to writing. I have to work my "day job" in order to pay rent. LWN can't afford to pay my salary (meagar that it is).

I am going to try and do more in depth stuff, especially on distros and various app/util reviews. My only other strength is that I know a lot of the history of Linux. I started with in in November 1991. A while ago I'd writen a loose, fluffy piece on the Linux history that I have experienced over the years. I might try and clean it up and flesh it out to be something solid. Maybe. One of these days.