[Haskell] on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education-related Haskell-related mailing list

[Manuel M T Chakravarty]

Benjamin L. Russell:
> I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed  
> mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of  
> Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing  
> List."  This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that  
> Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching  
> programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with  
> Scheme.  When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon  
> Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested  
> that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting  
> it here to ask for feedback.
>
> The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as  
> follows:
>
> 1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to  
> serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in  
> education, such as in high school and in introductory computer  
> science college courses, as opposed to in research.
>
> 2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to  
> serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish  
> to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part  
> of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an  
> engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.

The Haskell community seems to be growing quickly and clearly becomes  
more diverse.  So, a mailing list aimed at users with less experience  
and/or a non-computing, non-math background makes sense to me.

Whether you will be able to gather a critical mass of knowledgeable  
people who are happy to answer questions on the list is hard to answer  
without trying your idea.  But mailing lists are cheap.  So, I'd say,  
let's give it a try and see whether it works.  In any case, it'd be  
important to describe the purpose of the list at

   http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Mailing_lists

properly to make clear which discussions should go to which list.

Manuel