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[ANN] Scala feedback forums on UserVoice.com

4 replies
hrj
Joined: 2008-09-23,
User offline. Last seen 4 years 3 weeks ago.

Hi _,

As a long-time Scala user, I have always felt the need to give suggestions/feedback to the language/library
implementors.

The mailing lists are a quick and dirty way to do this, but that is also their drawback. The information is not
well structured, when you need to look at the most popular suggestions at a glance. Consequently, many suggestions
might go unnoticed, unanswered.

The Scala Improvement Proposals are a very structured and formal way to suggest improvements, but they are too
involved for average users (like me) to contribute to. They require intimate knowledge of the compiler and JVM.

The Scala Trak system can probably fill the gap here, but IMHO, it is not very suited for gathering user inputs.
(Difficult to describe why; it just feels very cumbersome).

So as a way out, I have created Scala forums on Uservoice.com:
http://scala.uservoice.com

The forums allow anyone to add their suggestions and vote for them. (ala crowd sourcing). There are three different
forums; Language, Library, General.

Hope this serves as another feedback channel for this thriving community.

cheers,

odersky
Joined: 2008-07-29,
User offline. Last seen 45 weeks 6 days ago.
Re: [ANN] Scala feedback forums on UserVoice.com

Harshad, thank you for this initiative. This could become a very good
resource for users to interact and exchange ideas. We did not have so
far something that's more permanent than irc & e-mail and less formal
and burdensome
than SID's. So this forum could well fill that role.

Cheers

Randall R Schulz
Joined: 2008-12-16,
User offline. Last seen 1 year 29 weeks ago.
Re: [ANN] Scala feedback forums on UserVoice.com

On Sunday October 11 2009, martin odersky wrote:
> Harshad, thank you for this initiative. This could become a very good
> resource for users to interact and exchange ideas. We did not have so
> far something that's more permanent than irc & e-mail and less formal
> and burdensome
> than SID's. So this forum could well fill that role.
>
> Cheers
>

hrj
Joined: 2008-09-23,
User offline. Last seen 4 years 3 weeks ago.
Re: [ANN] Scala feedback forums on UserVoice.com

Randall R Schulz wrote:
> For what it's worth, Scala Forum has existed for a few months. It has
> been used mostly by beginners.
>
>

Thanks for the link; wasn't aware of it.

> I am concerned that there might become too many different places with
> conversations on Scala taking place. While I no longer favor mailing
> lists (for a combination of technical and sociological reasons), unless
> and until these lists are migrated to a non-mailing-list forum, I think
> we should encourage conversations about what Scala is and where it's
> going to stay here (by which I mean the EPFL-run Scala lists, not just
> Scala-User).

I share your concern about forums for general discussion. There are the mailing-lists, IRC, StackOverflow, scala-
forum.org, and perhaps some more. (I personally favour StackOverflow). Creating another for general discussion would
have further diluted the space.

However, the uservoice.com forum has a more specific intent of collecting _feedback_ from users and of prioritizing
it. It is not intended for general programming questions, etc. I think its need will be justified if there are many
people wanting to give feedback. (I suspect there are).

cheers,

sadie
Joined: 2008-12-21,
User offline. Last seen 42 years 45 weeks ago.
Re: [ANN] Scala feedback forums on UserVoice.com

Nice. I've entered my two pet wants. Hopefully the system will fill up enough
with other ideas that mine no longer sit at the top just because I gave them
3 votes.

Harshad RJ wrote:
>
> Randall R Schulz wrote:
>> For what it's worth, Scala Forum has existed for a few months. It has
>> been used mostly by beginners.
>>
>>
>
> Thanks for the link; wasn't aware of it.
>
>> I am concerned that there might become too many different places with
>> conversations on Scala taking place. While I no longer favor mailing
>> lists (for a combination of technical and sociological reasons), unless
>> and until these lists are migrated to a non-mailing-list forum, I think
>> we should encourage conversations about what Scala is and where it's
>> going to stay here (by which I mean the EPFL-run Scala lists, not just
>> Scala-User).
>
> I share your concern about forums for general discussion. There are the
> mailing-lists, IRC, StackOverflow, scala-
> forum.org, and perhaps some more. (I personally favour StackOverflow).
> Creating another for general discussion would
> have further diluted the space.
>
> However, the uservoice.com forum has a more specific intent of collecting
> _feedback_ from users and of prioritizing
> it. It is not intended for general programming questions, etc. I think its
> need will be justified if there are many
> people wanting to give feedback. (I suspect there are).
>
> cheers,

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