enhancing the language review container

[Pete Gonzalez]

At 09:18 AM 1/15/2002, Fare wrote:
> > Additionally, I think the content could be improved by
> > (1) providing sample code for each language,
> > and (2) making a clear division between facts and opinions, and (3) adding
> > a little (but not too much) visual style to the presentation.
>
>Well, one advantage of using a database would be to be able to
>show more or less detail, on demand, and (3) could be automatic.
>In the current setup, (1) would only bloat the whole thing up.

Yes, the data will be separated from the actual HTML presentation,
and you could have multiple presentations.  However, if there's anything
to learn from the web, it's that flexible search methods are more
important than flexible presentations.  I'd like to focus on a one-page
-per-language presentation with annotations, crosslinks, full-text
search, etc.  Also, we'll generalize it a bit so that the database
can store other types of blurbs besides language reviews.  And then
there are the more challenging frills like tracking authorship,
granting permissions, administrative interface, and (hopefully) a
doc-ID system that enables the hierarchy to be restructured without
invalidating old URL's.

It will take some digging to find high-quality open software that
can be massaged to do all this, but (being a programmer) I'm
optimistic.

>(2) is good, but beware that the division between facts and opinions
>is itself subjective.

Indeed, but for most people this is inherent in the terminology, and
for the remainder something more blunt than careful diction is required
if you wish to enlighten them.  :-)

> > My contributions to the actual content would be minor [...]
>That's ok. We just got a new maintainer for the contents:
>         Jeff Cutsinger <seaslug@tunes.org>

Very good.

> > broaden the appeal to include people who are uninterested
> > in the official Tunes "party line".
>One of the reason the "party line" dominates the documents is because
>there is no good way currently to identify the author of opinion expressed,
>so the only current way to avoid confusion as to potential incoherencies is
>to have homogeneous editorial control. Identifying the author of opinions
>would allow to loosen this control.

It could even be an open forum with a moderator who selects a top-ten
contents to be visible by default for each blurb.  However, I would
discourage this, because I think the Tunes listserve is sufficient, and
in my experience open forums are a lot of work to maintain.  So unless
there are objections, we'll keep the authorship to a small set of approved
editors.

>Thanks for your interest.

Thanks for your consideration.  Unless there are any other issues, I
will contact you in early April.

-Pete