[isabelle-dev] Announcement: The Isabelle Community Wiki

[Brian Huffman]

On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 5:18 PM, Makarius <makarius at sketis.net> wrote:
> We should probably also explain more explicitly the purpose of
> isabelle-users vs. isabelle-dev.  Especially prevent the misconception that
> "users = Isabelle/Isar" and "dev = Isabelle/ML", which was never intended
> that way as far as I am concerned.  It is more like "users = some recent
> official release" and "dev = arbitrary repository versions and the related
> development process, including administrative things like isatest, mira
> etc.".

I think that many people choose a list to post to based on the
intended audience for the question, i.e., they expect that the "Users
mailing list" will be read by users and the "Developers mailing list"
will be read by the developers. So I am not surprised that people tend
to ask Isabelle/ML questions on isabelle-dev, because it is rare that
anyone but a developer could answer such questions authoritatively.

Perhaps the website should call isabelle-dev the "Isabelle development
repository mailing list", if that is a more precise description of its
intended purpose.

I will go ahead and modify the name on the wiki, assuming that nobody objects.

- Brian