[TAG] an idea

[Benjamin A. Okopnik]

[ cc'd to The Answer Gang for comments and further suggestions ]

On Wed, Apr 19, 2006 at 05:49:17PM -0700, Pablo Jadzinsky wrote:
> Dear editor,
> 
> I am somewhat newbie to linux and I find your magazine the best  
> resource I found so far. Even though I have great pleasure reading it  
> and I find it extremely useful I have a suggestion.
> I think it would be great to have a 'homework' forum where every  
> month a script or task can be suggested and then we (the readers)  
> work on in during say 2 weeks. Some of us can send solutions to you  
> and then someone on your team can post some of the different  
> solutions with perhaps some comments on the different approaches. My  
> experience says that the only way of really learning linux is through  
> practice but at the beginning is difficult to use the system altogether.
> 
> Any way, I hope you find my comment appropriate and useful.
> 
> Thanks a lot
> Pablo Jadzinsky

Pablo, that's an excellent idea. I like it a lot; in fact, this is one
of the things I tried to do when I wrote the "Learning Perl" series here
a while ago. In fact, your idea gives _me_ an idea:

How would you like to write this column?

Before you start objecting due to the fact that you're a "newbie" [1],
consider these two facts:

1) You don't have to come up with an answer to them yourself (although I
certainly hope that you'll try); posting them to The Answer Gang should
get a nice variety of answers which you could collate and use as part of
next month's article.

2) I suspect that most of us (it is certainly true for me) have by now
forgotten the specific *kinds* of problems that new users face, and
would have a tough time coming up with a list of them that would be
relevant. You, on the other hand, have the advantage of your position
as a new user, and can simply use any problems that you run into (after
considering if they are of general interest, of course.)

Besides... I don't like to mention it, because it's sort of like
twisting people's arms... but think of the *fame*. I mean, just imagine
- "Pablo Jadzinsky, Linux Gazette columnist." In *bold*, even. Women
will swoon, men will grit their teeth in envy, little green creatures
from Beta Aurigae will _finally_ make contact with us because we've
shown ourselves to be so highly evolved... it's a winning scenario all
around. Really. :)



[1] To quote Tom Christiansen, whose opinion, I fully share,

  I find "Newbie" to be a grating, overly-cutsie buzzword (read: obsequious
  neologism) used by people who are either trying to be overly-cutsie or
  else who don't know that "neophyte", "beginner" or "I'm new to" work just
  fine.  It sounds like something you'd be likely to find in that
  offensively entitled line of books called "XXX for Dummies".


* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://linuxgazette.net *