For a long time now eclectic has been lying fallow. I've just been able to keep up to date with XML-DEV on a daily basis and keep it maintained the way I used to. A combination of factors including being much busier at work (now managing a team) and at home (now a father, and soon to be so again).
However I think the main reason is that the conversations seem to be endlessly spiralling around several recurring themes ("permathreads"). This makes for very tedious reading as the trenches rarely shift very far in either direction. This has greatly reduced my tolerance for keeping up to date with the list. In the past I've tried to remain as impartial as possible, but once you've blogged about a topic for the nth time it starts to get tedious fast.
So I'm declaring eclectic to be dead. I'm not longer going to be a daily reader of XML-DEV but will stop by the archives occasionally and report on any interesting topics that I see.
Sadly however, a brief look into this months archives sees threads on XSLT vs CSS, Namespaces, and even one about Permathreads. So slim pickings for the moment.
It's a shame really as I've learnt a great deal from monitoring XML-DEV over the last few years. I think the community has matured to the point where the interesting stuff is now happening on the "fringes" -- separate dedicated mailing lists or other shared spaces. And thats where I intend to keep lurking for the moment.
Many thanks to Userland for providing a free hosting service for so long.
If anyone is interested in taking the content from eclectic, you can download eclectic.root (a Frontier database export of the site)
Posted by ldodds at July 25, 2003 03:22 PM | Feedback? | | TrackBack