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

[Paul Hudak]

Simon Marlow wrote:
> My main concern here is that the remit for the new list is not clear 
> enough.  I can see a potential need for two lists:
>
>   * a list for discussion related to teaching Haskell;
>
>   * a list devoted to those learning Haskell, with a less research-
>     oriented feel than haskell-cafe.
>
> it's not obvious to me that both of those needs should be served by a 
> single list.  I believe it's important that the mailing lists served 
> by haskell.org should have clear non-overlapping topics.
>
> So I suggest that we add haskell-edu for the purposes of discussing 
> the use and teaching of Haskell in education.  For the second point 
> above, I'd be inclined not to add a new list, but I don't feel that 
> strongly - if there's a concensus in favour of adding 
> haskell-beginners (for example), that would be fine.
>
> Cheers,
>     Simon
Using Simon's names, I think that there is a greater need for 
haskell-beginners than for haskell-edu.  Despite the friendly people on 
haskell-cafe, it is very intimidating, and very busy (sadly, I've mostly 
stopped reading it for the latter reason).  I don't think that 
haskell-cafe serves well at all as a forum for beginners, whereas it 
might serve just fine as a forum for instructors.

In any case, these are two distinct purposes, and I agree with Simon 
that it's probably unwise to have a single mailing list for both.  I 
would vote for starting a haskell-beginners list and see how it goes.  I 
think that a decent number of experienced people will chip in to answer 
questions (they don't have to be experts -- just good at explaining 
things), and in my experience beginners like to help fellow beginners -- 
i.e. it will sustain itself.

I would also be interested in a haskell-edu list, but as I said before I 
don't think the demand for it is as great as that for haskell-beginners.

By the way, the haskell-art mailing list is not very active, but it has 
served a useful role.  I wonder if it would help to have a description 
of it (and any new lists that we create) to the descriptions at:

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

    -Paul Hudak