On Fri, 5 May 2000, Michael Metcalf wrote:
> Quite frequently, very strong opinions are expressed in this
> group
OK, here's another strong opinion. I appreciate your efforts as editor of
Fortran Forum, but suspect that you are merely promoting a dying medium.
(note: "medium" is the singular of "media", please join my campaign to
keep it alive).
If I publish anything in a learned journal, or present something at a
conference, the time-scale for feedback is months, or even a year. If I
publish it on-line, people can react within hours or days, and often do.
Occasionally people even thank me.
Most of my colleagues who are active researchers _never_ visit the
University Library any more - all the journals they wish to read are
available on-line, and tracking down a paper published some years ago is
much easier, faster, and more certain, if one uses an on-line search
service than if one resorts to printed indexes or abstracting journals.
Issues of some astronomical journals are now on-line right back to 1800,
and most of the back runs will be complete soon. No library around here
has anything going back more than 30 years. That's ephemerality for you
(and astronomers do sometimes need to look at old data).
A couple of years ago I actually tried to subscribe to "ACM Fortran Forum"
- it didn't then have a secure web-site (does it now?) and took the risk
of sending my credit card number in an open e-mail. I waited for many
weeks but got no results (no journal, no credit-card debit). I wasn't
sure that sending another e-mail would be any more effective than the
first one, and I'm not senior enough to have a phone than can made direct
international calls, so I gave up. Now I think that I can do without
subscribing to Fortran information printed on slices of dead tree.
> Postings here are, however, ephemeral.
A journal which doesn't have many subscribers, and isn't available in many
libraries isn't much more accessible; at least many of the better
postings to this list and to Usenet get grabbed and incorporated in a
number of web-sites. They may last as long as Fortran does.
How's that for a strong opinion? (and you're welcome to reprint it in your
journal if you wish, with suitable attribution).
Please note: I wish you well in your endeavour, but the world is changing,
whether we like it or not.
--
Clive Page,
Dept of Physics & Astronomy,
University of Leicester.
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