[Jacob Rus]
Use Gmane if you want a forum-like web interface. I recommend against it though, as forum-like web interfaces suck.
[podperson]
I agree. Forums don't suck. Forum-like web interfaces suck.
[Jacob Rus]
Find me a forum with a desktop app as its interface, and we’ll talk.
Until then, you get a -1 from me on any forum proposal.
[podperson]
How about Safari? It's as much a desktop app as Mail.
Why do I get the feeling you’re not really reading the responses you’re getting here?
I cannot read a web forum in either NNTP readers, nor desktop mail readers. I can read this mailing list in my browser in about 4 different ways, including some that look like most web forums but better. I can also read it in any mail client, usenet client, or rss feed reader. I can munge its plain text messages in a program written in any language I like. I can trivially make the Bubbles voice read each message out loud on my laptop as it arrives, if I so desire.
[Jacob Rus]
Given that, as far as I know, most of those who work on TextMate bundles, including Allan himself, feel somewhat the same way,
[podperson]
How would you know?
Sorry, by “TextMate bundles”, I meant “those TextMate bundles which are in wide public use”. I thought that was clear, but apparently not.
I realize you think hacking bundles is some kind of elite thing, but I suspect anyone who uses TextMate hacks bundles. They probably don't sync their changes to svn because it's a PITA, and they don't talk here because it's a PITA.
You aren’t making any friends here by being patronizing.
(Or for added snark: I realize you think that using email is some kind of elite thing, but I suspect anyone who uses TextMate has also used email.)
I doubt you really want an answer to this, but actually I think no such thing. I was “hacking bundles” within a couple of days of using TextMate, before I had much understanding of it at all, and had hopped on IRC and contributed a bit myself within the first week (ironically, the “bulletin board” bundle, for syntax highlighting the god-awful markup used by most web forums).
Oddly enough, it's easier to extend and customize it than participate in the online community, which is kind of sad.
It’s surprisingly easy if your outlook is positive and cooperative, and your goal is solving practical problems. If your communication style convinces everyone in the community that you’re just trolling, then that “ease” depends on your definition of “participate”, I guess.
It would be really neat if you could set yourself up to treat the mailing list purely as a forum in a relatively straightforward manner
Feel free to write that software, or convince someone else to. Mail messages are a very well understood format, trivially mappable to whatever kind of front-end you like.
Alternately, go complain at the Gmane people if you don’t like their implementation(s) (it has most of the advantages you cite for fora: searchable, always available from anywhere, see all the replies to a thread in one flat page, etc.).
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.editors.textmate.general/26173
-Jacob