ParaSail on Gitter

[Olivier Henley]

Hi everyone,

I just created a Gitter room for ParaSail because some of us started to seriously pollute the Ada room with ParaSail chat. Not that it's really a problem but you know, why not a dedicated room; its live and therefore a great complement to a google group.

Here it is, everyone is welcome: https://gitter.im/parasail-lang/community

See you there,

Thanks,

Olivier

[Tucker Taft]

Thanks, Olivier.  For my edification, when is it more appropriate to use such a "gitter" room vs. the Google group?

Take care,

-Tuck

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[Martin Vahi]

The problem with both, Google Groups and Gitter and many other alternatives is that the forums are a kind of source for technical documentation and ALL OF THAT WILL BE LOST the moment the company hosting the solution decides to do so. For example, Google has shut down projects before

https://support.google.com/answer/1083134?hl=en

archival copy:

https://archive.is/FWNtZ

With something mail-like, including traditional email based mailing lists people can use mail filters to place all of the mailing list letters to some "folder"(however that happens to be implemented) and then upload that "folder" to some mail format specific archival site like the

http://textfiles.com/

Services like the

https://www.mail-archive.com/

do not qualify, because they will be offline the moment their runner decides to take them offline. The best option that I'm currently aware of is to let people use whatever they happen to choose and then mirror that to other channels and hope that somebody will create some literally illegal archive of the messages. I'm using the phrase "literally illegal", because it is only a matter of time and party, what happens to be illegal at some place and time. In the 2021 West it's child porn. In 2021 China it's material about democracy. In 2021 Arab states it's any criticism about whoever is there at the top of the supermafia hierarchy. Any kind of teaching about anything may be deemed illegal. For example, during the samurai era Japan it was illegal for ordinary peasants to learn karate a lot like firearms are subject to supermafia issued "weapon's license" in 2021 West. Supposedly the karate techniques that use rope as a weapon were developed as a countermeasure to that rule, because carrying rope was legal for peasants and a peasant could then easily secretly practice rope related karate techniques at the woods. During the Soviet Union era, not at the end of the Soviet Union era, but like Stalin times learning karate was allowed only for military and spies. In the Soviet Union the teaching about how to remember things, the memorization techniques, was also reserved/allowed only for KGB and the rest of the spies and forbidden for ordinary civilian folks. Sociology was something that the Kremlin obviously used, but it was basically a "forbidden science". The field of Information Technology, called as "Cybernetics" back in the day (Estonian word: "küberneetika") was not totally banned, but clearly something that the Soviet Union political elite did not want the masses to adopt. Cybernetics was denounced as "a science by the bad western capitalists" and in Estonia studying, developing it and using it as much as possible was a form of protest by the academic circles against the Soviet regime. The saying in Estonia is/was that the only reason, why the Moscow allowed Estonians/Estonian_academics to work on Cybernetics was that they realized at Moscow that they will not get their (Soviet) rockets to fly without that and in the arms race they need engineers that are capable of using the "bad capitalist science" called Cybernetics.

So, technical documentation, be it just plain "innocent" datasheets or any other documentation can be as illegal as "child porn" in 2021 West. It's only a matter of time and place. A stellar example, how software archives and documentation archives MUST be illegal in 2021 is that the only way to run Windows95 specific software, for exaple, artistic works like games and interactive books, is on Windows95, which is obviously some pirated copy, specially if it is in some VirtualBox virtual appliance. There can not even be any "textfile-or-whateverfile.com" that has such archives. Another example is the 80-ties home computer scene, the Commodore64, Amiga, and alike, where the ROM-images are in the role of operating system and any educational software or games that depend on standard-ROM basically need that "pirated" copy of the image even if run in some simulator that runs on a modern computer. The "Micky Mouse" (2 contexts, like Walt Disney character story and "Micky Mouse" as a synonym of the word "American") copyright law has spread the 70 year copyright  all over the globe and 2021-70=1951 < 1970 (or 1980, depending on how one wants to look at it).

So, like it or not, to preserve technical documentation and technology specific artistic works(games, education programs), one has to become some "pirate" or counter-censorship-activist or otherwise someone, who might be a target of some regime or otherwise mad party like some religious nuts killing "non-believers". Redirecting the documentation, including forum posts, to different channels is one technique to be an "effective pirate".

Thank You for reading my comment.

[Olivier Henley]

I would say, 

subject-based: https://groups.google.com/g/parasail-programming-language

quick and dirty, real-time, multiplexing any subjects, addressing someone in the crowd, chat like: Gitter

Gitter is a smart presence because the crowd is there, younger blood, not to offend anyone. 

With a bigger community, there is always someone connected that can jump in for quick support and/or chat about something.

We also tend to follow many rooms and the notification is more instantaneous, less 'emailish'.

Some great connectivity features, eg. tagging, presence indicator, member list, private chat, Github 'capture'.

Oh, I was forgetting. When you know some Markdown, writing snippets of codes, formatting in general, is way more adapted than google groups.

Olivier 

[Tucker Taft]

OK, thanks for the explanation.  It sounds like it is more of a "chat"/"slack" channel than something for longer discourse.

I was trying to use the Element "app" for it on my iPhone, but can't seem to "find" the room.  Does it have a "global" room name for access by a "Matrix"-compatible app like Element?

Take care,

-Tuck

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/parasail-programming-language/c667f9ad-d112-49e6-b49f-7142d7ff84can%40googlegroups.com.

[Olivier Henley]

Ok its tricky. when you go with Element web, you can find it, then it lists the exact room id to search. 

Literal:

#parasail-lang_community:gitter.im

[Tucker Taft]

Thanks!  I managed to find it...  I have joined with "@sttaft:matrix" rather than my twitter account, so I probably will end up with a split personality in the room... ;-)

-Tuck

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/parasail-programming-language/80d275ac-88cf-46fc-9972-b42f71cb2cean%40googlegroups.com.