Re: What gives?

> From: Jack Parker <jparker@hpbs3645.boi.hp.com> > Subject: What gives? > To: informix-list@rmy.emory.edu (Informix Users Net) > Date: Mon, 3 Apr 95 16:08:22 MDT > > Pholks, > > First of all allow me to apologize for a minor spam. I borrowed Harvey's > login to ask an RTFM and see what happened. You may recall the question was > something like 'can I run isql forms and reports from the command line'. If > I had asked that question 2 years ago I would have been bombarded with 40-50 > answers. To date there have been 4 answers to Harveys' question, two of which > involve 'sacego/sperform'. > > I asked the question to confirm a sneaking suspicion I had that net answership > has declined over the past whatever. I am not so sure this is the case. Traffic seems about the same, but the subject matter has changed a LOT over the years. > Might I ask why? Have we gotten better > in terms of recognizing when a quesstion is so easy that everybody is going > to answer? Partly so. I know I could have answered the question; but I don't use ACE and PERFORM, I use 4GL. Why not let the ACE / PERFORM gurus answer? [snip] > Have we all gone so far into the stratosphere with our topics that simple > everyday questions like this are meaningless? Different interests drive many of us now. Look at all the ODBC messages, or the RAID / raw partition messages, or the query performance messages. These seem to be the focus of interest at the moment. Many folks are just not interested in PERFORM now with NewEra making inroads if not already here. And it *WAS* an RTFM question! Newbies are welcome, but they would do well to read at least a LITTLE before costing the pay-per-message folks money with the kind of question that is obviously answered in the manuals. > Have we lost readership due > to the number of job postings? Has Informix become such a little-used > product that there aren't that many of us left? Informix is gaining more interest, at least here in Denver. Recently I've had more recruiters call me regarding Informix than Oracle. Nothing's come of it for me tho'. Darn! And I can trace many of those contacts to the job postings that flowed thru this forum, either directly or because the recruiters still had me on file from an earlier contact. > This is not the way I remember it and I don't like it at all. I realize > that I haven't been answering many questions lately - trying to restrict > myself to ones I know I know and not those where Jonathan is bound to have > a better answer. Jonathan is wonderful. He is still my hero, but even he has only finite time available. I notice that he has reduced the number of answers he posts. > Would y'all care to discuss this? I guess I just did. > Should we move it to IUG-talk? Not really a user group issue, is it? Regards, Alan +---------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+ | R. Alan Popiel | Internet: alan@den.mmc.com | | Lockheed Martin, SLS | Voice: 303-977-9998 | | P.O. Box 179, M/S 3810 | Standard disclaimers apply. Cutesy ones, too. | | Denver, CO 80201-0179 USA | Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. | +---------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+