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

[Benjamin L.Russell]

On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:04:04 +0100, Simon Marlow <marlowsd at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Best suggestions I've seen so far:
>
>   beginners at haskell.org (I like the plural better too, thanks Dan)
>   help at haskell.org
>   questions at haskell.org
>
>let me know your preference (privately, unless you have anything else to 
>add to the discussion).

Thank you, Simon.

Personally, I think that there are problems with all three names,
though:

beginners at haskell.org:  Although this name definitely captures the
flavor of the mailing list and also conveys a sense of community (with
the addition of the 's,' thanks to Dan Licata), the double-n is easy
to mistake for beginners, and a new user would probably have
difficulty remembering whether the name was "beginner" or "beginners"
if a sudden question arose after six months of absence from the
mailing list.

help at haskell.org:  As Angelos Sphyris pointed out in a private e-mail
message (which I later forwarded to this mailing list), this seems to
suggest a general help archive/source complete with manuals, faqs,
examples etc.  More importantly, it does not suggest a sense of
community.

questions at haskell.org:  This name limits the scope of the list to
questions, as opposed to general beginner topics, and does not seem
appropriate for non-question beginner-related issues.  Also, this name
does not convey a sense of community.

Since this new list is about beginner issues for Haskell, a functional
programming language, ideally, the name should simultaneously be
short, easy to remember, academic, suggest general beginner issues,
and, if possible, suggest a sense of community.  The best alternatives
that I have come up with are the following:

alpha at haskell.org:  This name denotes a Greek letter used in
mathematics, is associated with a beginning, is academic, but does not
really suggest a sense of community.

lambda-alpha at haskell.org:  This name denotes two Greek letters used in
mathematics, ordered so as to denote a beginning of the
lambda-calculus, and is academic, but does not really suggest a sense
of community.

haskell-alpha at haskell.org:  This name denotes a Greek letter used in
mathematics, is associated with a beginning, is academic, and suggests
a sense of community.

haskell-lambda-alpha at haskell.org:  This name is simply too long to
remember.

In sum, I suggest haskell-alpha at haskell.org.  Any better alternatives?

-- Benjamin L. Russell