Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 10:19): Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 10:19):From: "C. Diekmann" <diekmann@in.tum.de>
Hi,
if I have a common problem, in many programming languages the problem
can be solved by typing it into google. Unfortunately, this isn't the
case with isabelle. Therefore, I suggest to collect common isabelle
user question in the wiki, such that they can be indexed by google. As
an example, I created two pages with such problems.
https://isabelle.in.tum.de/community/Category:Tips_and_Tricks
I find myself to look at my code very often to remember how to
instantiate an existential quantifier in apply style. The great thing
about a wiki is, that you can warn there, that apply style is somewhat
deprecated. Also, I found that I reimplemented filter to remove
elements from a list (thanks Peter for pointing that out!). I guess,
others might have similar problems?
Collecting these common questions in the wiki, indexable by google,
would be a great thing.
Regards
Cornelius
Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 10:20):From: Christian Sternagel <c.sternagel@gmail.com>
Dear Cornelius (and all),
As indicated, for example, here
https://mailmanbroy.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/pipermail/isabelle-dev/2013-February/003867.html
and here
https://lists.cam.ac.uk/pipermail/cl-isabelle-users/2013-February/msg00257.html
the status of
https://isabelle.in.tum.de/community
is currently a bit unclear.
Nevertheless some comments:
On 02/26/2013 12:45 AM, C. Diekmann wrote:
if I have a common problem, in many programming languages the problem
can be solved by typing it into google. Unfortunately, this isn't the
case with isabelle. Therefore, I suggest to collect common isabelle
user question in the wiki, such that they can be indexed by google. As
an example, I created two pages with such problems.
The Isabelle mailing lists are also indexed by search engines like
google, a more common problem is that either the question was not asked
at all (after all, the group of Isabelle users is by far smaller as for
popular programming languages), or it has been formulated in a way that
it does not match your search.
https://isabelle.in.tum.de/community/Category:Tips_and_Tricks
As far as I see, this page is not reachable from the Main_Page of the
wiki. Moreover, there is already a topic "Tips and Tricks" on the Main_Page.
I think many answers for "frequently" asked questions are already part
of Isabelle's documentation. The main problem, as you found out, is that
this is not easily accessible via internet search (and most users seem
not eager to read documentation PDFs ;) ).
I think, instead of duplicating answers (which will often be outdated
very soon if they are not part of the official documentation), we need
to find a way to make the existing documentation more accessible.
Also the status of the current "community wiki" should be clarified at
some point. As long as it is not endorsed by all of the official project
leaders, it is not clear whether it is worth contributing there.
Even if the wiki stays, currently it does not feel like its intended
audience is isabelle users (which is partly my fault, sorry), rather
isabelle developers. I think mostly because there are much more
quasi-developers discussing about Isabelle than users (I don't know why).
cheers
chris
Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 10:20):From: "C. Diekmann" <diekmann@in.tum.de>
2013/2/26 Christian Sternagel <c.sternagel@gmail.com>:
[...]
The Isabelle mailing lists are also indexed by search engines like google, a
more common problem is that either the question was not asked at all (after
all, the group of Isabelle users is by far smaller as for popular
programming languages), or it has been formulated in a way that it does not
match your search.
Indeed, I was afraid to ask this newbie questions.
https://isabelle.in.tum.de/community/Category:Tips_and_Tricks
As far as I see, this page is not reachable from the Main_Page of the wiki.
Moreover, there is already a topic "Tips and Tricks" on the Main_Page.
It was just a suggestion, therefore I intentionally did not link it
from the Main Page.
I think many answers for "frequently" asked questions are already part of
Isabelle's documentation. The main problem, as you found out, is that this
is not easily accessible via internet search (and most users seem not eager
to read documentation PDFs ;) ).
Unfortunately, almost everything is in the PDFs. But typing the
problem into google is way more efficient. Unfortunately, there is a
lot of PDF and it is really hard to get started with isabelle.
I think, instead of duplicating answers (which will often be outdated very
soon if they are not part of the official documentation), we need to find a
way to make the existing documentation more accessible.
stackexchange works quite well.
Also the status of the current "community wiki" should be clarified at some
point. As long as it is not endorsed by all of the official project leaders,
it is not clear whether it is worth contributing there.Even if the wiki stays, currently it does not feel like its intended
audience is isabelle users (which is partly my fault, sorry), rather
isabelle developers. I think mostly because there are much more
quasi-developers discussing about Isabelle than users (I don't know why).
So, I should move such things to stackexchange?
Should I remove those wiki pages and migrate them to stackexchange too?
Cheers
Cornelius
Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 10:20):From: Makarius <makarius@sketis.net>
Just do it. These community platforms don't depend on central decrees to
work. It merely requires on a critical mass of people moving in a certain
direction.
I have myself still no proper idea how SE works, but I might find it
worthwhile to learn it soon.
Makarius
Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 10:22):From: Christoph LANGE <math.semantic.web@gmail.com>
2013-02-27 14:34 C. Diekmann:
So, I should move such things to stackexchange?
Should I remove those wiki pages and migrate them to stackexchange too?
I thought I had something to contribute to the wiki as well (at least
after my next, upcoming paper deadline).
Off-list Makarius had pointed out some anti-patterns to me, which I had
used in a formalisation. So I thought why not put such examples on a
wiki page and explain how to do them right.
I know stackexchange but rather just as a reader so far. I am a wiki
expert but also know that it's no use using them without a critical mass
of participants.
OK, now I wonder how to put "facts" on stackexchange. I am not, at
least not in this case, planning to ask questions and wait for them to
be answered, nor am I planning to answer questions in this case, but: I
had done something (i.e. written some Isabelle code), I got feedback on
it how to improve it, and this whole result of "instead of <foo> do
<bar> because …" I would like to share with the rest of the world. (And
of course I wouldn't mind a further discussion thread getting appended
to it.)
Is there any easy pattern for doing this on stackexchange?
Cheers,
Christoph
Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 10:22):From: Lars Noschinski <noschinl@in.tum.de>
On 28.02.2013 03:30, Christoph LANGE wrote:
Off-list Makarius had pointed out some anti-patterns to me, which I had
used in a formalisation. So I thought why not put such examples on a
wiki page and explain how to do them right.I know stackexchange but rather just as a reader so far. I am a wiki
expert but also know that it's no use using them without a critical mass
of participants.OK, now I wonder how to put "facts" on stackexchange. I am not, at
least not in this case, planning to ask questions and wait for them to
be answered, nor am I planning to answer questions in this case, but: I
had done something (i.e. written some Isabelle code), I got feedback on
it how to improve it, and this whole result of "instead of<foo> do
<bar> because …" I would like to share with the rest of the world. (And
of course I wouldn't mind a further discussion thread getting appended
to it.)
This depends. Stackexchange is really a Q&A format. If you can phrase
your problem as a real question and then subsequently answer it
yourself, this is fine (you can look on meta.stackoverflow.org for
guidelines).
However, if there is not a real question, it is off-topic there. This
holds in particular for things where there is no "correct" answer.
Please don't refrain from writing this down somewhere, just because some
consider the status of the wiki unclear.
-- Lars
Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 10:22):From: Lars Noschinski <noschinl@in.tum.de>
On 27.02.2013 15:34, C. Diekmann wrote:
2013/2/26 Christian Sternagel<c.sternagel@gmail.com>:
[...]
The Isabelle mailing lists are also indexed by search engines like google, a
more common problem is that either the question was not asked at all (after
all, the group of Isabelle users is by far smaller as for popular
programming languages), or it has been formulated in a way that it does not
match your search.Indeed, I was afraid to ask this newbie questions.
Don't be. We expect people to make a fair attempt to find the answer
themselves, but if you cannot find the anwer, ask.
I think many answers for "frequently" asked questions are already part of
Isabelle's documentation. The main problem, as you found out, is that this
is not easily accessible via internet search (and most users seem not eager
to read documentation PDFs ;) ).
It is the nature of reference documentation that it requires you to know
what you are looking for.
I think, instead of duplicating answers (which will often be outdated very
soon if they are not part of the official documentation), we need to find a
way to make the existing documentation more accessible.
For me, it is often not about the answers, but about the questions.
Different people approach problems from different angles. A reference
manual will be organized by the inner structure of the software. A
tutorial is about getting an overview, not about solving concrete problems.
We need users to pose their own questions. And usually, the answer will
not just be a pointer to the official documentation. The answers may get
out of date (which is a much bigger problem for the system internals
than for the Isar level), but if they are on platforms where editing is
possible, we can always comment on that, if we find that users get confused.
Whether this is on the wiki or an services like stackexchange[1], I
don't really care. And I think neither of them needs an endorsement of
the project leaders, just enough users contributing. And none of them
could replace the mailing list, because they are not made for discussions.
stackexchange works quite well.
Currently, of the stackexchange sites, stackoverflow.com would be the
site where questions to using Isabelle are on-topic. This probably
excludes questions regarding the logical foundations.
-- Lars
Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 10:45):From: Makarius <makarius@sketis.net>
Note that historically, I was the one to initiate the server (for a
different purpose), later handed over its administration to someone else,
and supported the plan for rededication as Isabelle community wiki. I
also encouraged people on isabelle-users more than once to contribute
there.
My complaints about the wiki only started when it was used for internal
administrative information about the hard process to keep Isabelle
running. (You are in fact yourself one of the very few people involved in
that administration.)
What is also depressing for me is to see old emails of mine from
isabelle-dev (about Isabelle build) pasted there out-of-context. In the
meantime I had spent several weeks to update Isabelle READMEs and manuals
to cover the new build tool. Instead of pointing out omissions in the
published documentation, there is this cloning of outdated information.
Makarius
Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 10:47):From: Makarius <makarius@sketis.net>
You are actually one of those few who have answered questions under the
"isabelle" tag on stackexchange already.
I have started looking myself yesterday. I do see a difference in the
structure compared to raw wiki (MediaWiki) -- which is indeed
old-fashioned as was pointed out before this thread was moved from
isabelle-dev to isabelle-users.
Stackexchange is not just this chaotic editing by anyone, and later the
reader needs to sort out archeological layers himself, to learn who said
what at some point in history, and how relevant or trustworthy the
information. It has a little bit of organization of these layers of
editing, voting up or down etc.
Of course, I can hardly say how it works out in practice, being there
member for less than 24 h, but my first impressions are quite good.
Yesterday I was at 1 point reputation and had 1 bronce badge (for reading
the introductory documentation). Just looking again I've already got +30
points and a "teacher" badge. So I won't have to go out and slay some
monsters in this game, to get more points :-)
Makarius
Last updated: Nov 21 2024 at 12:39 UTC