Don't let this happen to Ruby, pleeeeease?

[Glenn Smith]

------=_Part_11247_18077910.1140126473715
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

This is quite a good article I just read via a link on artima (I think).

http://www.pyrasun.com/mike/mt/archives/2005/01/09/20.57.06/

I was just thinking as I read it that it has some parallels with how I see
"the ruby community" from the perspective of an "outsider".

I won't elaborate too much, needless to say I just love Ruby, and wish I
could use it in my day-to-day job (right now, any bl**dy programming would
be good!!). I've read quite a bit recently that "Ruby is the next Java",
Java is dying etc. etc. Well good on it. And I think there are some
exceptional people, many on this list, who do a damned good job for selfles=
s
reasons to make it available to others.

It's just that, well, the actual Ruby exposure on the net is a bit weak, to
somebody like me who doesn't have the time to read every mail on the mailin=
g
list. Just simple things like a roadmap of what to expect from Ruby -
what's in the latest release for example, when's the next one, and what's
planned for 1.9? When exactly IS Rite going to be available. Is the new
super-duper website ever going to be finished?

Sorry, bit of a late night rant from somebody who cares...


--

All the best
Glenn

------=_Part_11247_18077910.1140126473715--

 

[James Britt]

This is quite a good article I just read via a link on artima (I think).

http://www.pyrasun.com/mike/mt/archives/2005/01/09/20.57.06/

I was just thinking as I read it that it has some parallels with how I see
"the ruby community" from the perspective of an "outsider".

I tried reading it, but it went on and on, and seemed basically to
bemoan the Death by Committee of Groovy, a topic of only passing
interest to me.

What is the "this" you fear for Ruby?

I won't elaborate too much, needless to say I just love Ruby, and wish I
could use it in my day-to-day job (right now, any bl**dy programming would
be good!!). I've read quite a bit recently that "Ruby is the next Java",
Java is dying etc. etc. Well good on it. And I think there are some
exceptional people, many on this list, who do a damned good job for selfless
reasons to make it available to others.

Quite true.

It's just that, well, the actual Ruby exposure on the net is a bit weak, to
somebody like me who doesn't have the time to read every mail on the mailing
list. Just simple things like a roadmap of what to expect from Ruby -

"What to expect"? Why? Seriously. Why not focus on what Ruby does
right now? Unlike Groovy, it's been around for over 12 years.

People interested in the future of Ruby should join the ruby-core
mailing list. Ruby's direction is not a spectator sport.

what's in the latest release for example, when's the next one, and what's
planned for 1.9? When exactly IS Rite going to be available. Is the new
super-duper website ever going to be finished?

Most of this info is available on ruby-lang.org, and in the release
notes and change logs. As for the "super-duper website", well, it will
be done when it's done. Same for Rite.

Ruby work gets done on a Ruby-time schedule. Many devoted volunteers
giving up their time when they can.

"Drivers wanted", as they say.

--
James Britt

http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
http://www.artima.com/rubycs/ - The Journal By & For Rubyists
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
http://www.30secondrule.com - Building Better Tools

 

[James Britt]

Alex Combas wrote:
...

I would prefer developers working on code and bug fixes as opposed to
writing documentation ...
...

What ruby really needs is better documentation! (imo).

Who should write the docs, if not the people writing the code?

 

[anne001]

I think the key of this text is that groovy had a big community making
suggestions, but lacked leadership in terms of structure:

exemple of problems: "The big problem of course was ambiguities -
feature interactions could lead to very confusing errors"

Suggestion for what was needed: "pair up James with someone who is good
at writing specs"
"It's time for someone to take leadership, produce a clear document
showing a
clear vision for Groovy, with a list of features that will be
implemented
and others that will be dropped. With a clear roadmap and precise
deliverables that future users can judge Groovy by and decide whether
it's a
solid project they can rely on or just another aborted open-source
project
they can safely ignore....it takes a real "tech lead" to do this.
Someone who understands the issues but also has a clear vision, sees
the "big picture" and is not afraid to bark a few orders and do things
himself if they don't get done."

As far as I can tell, there has not been this kind of problems with
Ruby. Ruby's center is fairly small and "unambiguous" and the growth
has been lead by libraries based on the core. As James has said, the
language has been around for years even in the US, so I think it is
well past the "immaturity stage" talked about in the article.

 

[dblack]

Hi --

MY PERSONAL GRIPE!
Please turn this into a wiki so that we can clean it up:
http://www.rubygarden.org/faq/main/
The ruby FAQ really really needs some love.
Yes, I'm talking to you dblack

I don't think turning something into a wiki is a way to clean it up --
rather the contrary. But a FAQ-updating effort would not be amiss. I
haven't yet thought through exactly how one would organize it.


David

--
David A. Black ([email protected])
Ruby Power and Light (http://www.rubypowerandlight.com)

"Ruby for Rails" chapters now available
from Manning Early Access Program! http://www.manning.com/books/black

 

[Glenn Smith]

------=_Part_4410_955007.1140295695499
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

Sorry, posted my rant, then disappeared for two days!

Perhaps the problem is more complex but I'm a simpleton, I just want to go
somewhere, download Ruby and start running it. And like most of the world,
I want to do this on Windows.

No, hold on, let me rephrase that - I HAVE to run it on Windows, I really
would prefer to run it on Mac OS/X (but the wife won't let me buy a Mac!)
)

So I go to the ruby website and there is the announcement: #Ruby 1.8.4relea=
sed

Ooh good! I'm happy, a nice new version of Ruby to look at. Maybe I'll us=
e
some of it's new features, maybe I won't, but I'm a "languages fan", I
program for work and play, I like new things. I love Ruby. And so do many
others, and so COULD many more...

Anyway, underneath it says: "The source is
<URL:ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4.tar.gz><ftp://ftp.ruby-lan=
g.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4.tar.gz>,
the md5sum is bd8c2e593e1fa4b01fd98eaf016329bb, and filesize is 4,312,965
bytes."

Well, woopy-doo. I couldn't care less what an md5sum is (I'm only vaguely
aware of what it means, and I've been using and programming PC's over 20
years). Anyway, the link is to a tar.gz file. Which is nice - if I was on
Unix. OK, I could extract it with Winzip - and I'll get... the source code.

I want a windows installer. Somebody else probably wants a Mac installer.
Maybe an RPM for Linux flavour 1, a .DEB for flavour 2 and so on (alright,
the Unix people can just run MAKE if they want). I don't have much recent
knowledge of hacking C, I just wanna use Ruby. And more, I wanna know
what's new in this release.

Where's the "what's new"? Embedded in some text file on an ftp-site
somewhere, or perhaps it's in the tar file. OK, so I know how to go look,
but there isn't anything even in the announcement that tells me to do that.
What if I was a relative-newbie? A youngster looking for a fun-new language
to teach themselves programming?

Am I asking a lot? Well pop over to python.org (and not python.com like I
keep making the mistake of going to!) and it's there - new release plus a
"what's new", same for the previous two releases. Installers for Windows
(32 and 64-bit!), and tar.gz's for everybody else (maybe now Mac's are base=
d
on unix it's easy for them just to run "make"?).

Fair-do's to Curt for his excelent one-click windows installer, but if that
is to be the only simple method for eejits like me (and a million others, n=
o
doubt) then surely this warrants at the very least a mention and a
direct-link on the front-page of ruby-lang.org?

------=_Part_4410_955007.1140295695499--

 

[James Britt]

Sorry, posted my rant, then disappeared for two days!

...

Am I asking a lot? Well pop over to python.org (and not python.com like I
keep making the mistake of going to!) and it's there - new release plus a
"what's new", same for the previous two releases. Installers for Windows
(32 and 64-bit!), and tar.gz's for everybody else (maybe now Mac's are based
on unix it's easy for them just to run "make"?).

Fair-do's to Curt for his excelent one-click windows installer, but if that
is to be the only simple method for eejits like me (and a million others, no
doubt) then surely this warrants at the very least a mention and a
direct-link on the front-page of ruby-lang.org?

There is a redesign underway (modulo the time constraints of Real Life)
of the ruby-lang homepage which, if the various comps are indicative,
should clear up some of these issues by making it easier to find stuff.



--
James Britt

http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
http://www.artima.com/rubycs/ - The Journal By & For Rubyists
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
http://www.30secondrule.com - Building Better Tools

 

[Glenn Smith]

------=_Part_4626_12597658.1140298587017
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

I have seen the mock-ups of the new website - they sure is purrrdee.

I did a google on SCADS - top link is: "*Stamp Collectors against Dodgy
Sellers"

)

*

...
e

There is a redesign underway (modulo the time constraints of Real Life)
of the ruby-lang homepage which, if the various comps are indicative,
should clear up some of these issues by making it easier to find stuff.



--
James Britt

http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
http://www.artima.com/rubycs/ - The Journal By & For Rubyists
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
http://www.30secondrule.com - Building Better Tools

--

All the best
Glenn
Aylesbury, UK

------=_Part_4626_12597658.1140298587017--

 

[David Vallner]

D=C5=88a Sobota 18 Febru=C3=A1r 2006 21:48 Glenn Smith nap=C3=ADsal:

Perhaps the problem is more complex but I'm a simpleton, I just want to go
somewhere, download Ruby and start running it. And like most of the worl= d,
I want to do this on Windows.

Noone's stopping you.

Anyway, underneath it says: "The source is
<URL:ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4.tar.gz><ftp://ftp.ruby-l= an
g.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4.tar.gz>, the md5sum is
bd8c2e593e1fa4b01fd98eaf016329bb, and filesize is 4,312,965 bytes."

Well, woopy-doo. I couldn't care less what an md5sum is (I'm only vaguely
aware of what it means, and I've been using and programming PC's over 20
years).

<troll>
Under a fluffy, warm rock?
</troll>

I want a windows installer. Somebody else probably wants a Mac installer.
Maybe an RPM for Linux flavour 1, a .DEB for flavour 2 and so on (alright,
the Unix people can just run MAKE if they want). I don't have much recent
knowledge of hacking C, I just wanna use Ruby. And more, I wanna know
what's new in this release.

The ruby-lang.org site doesn't maintain binary builds. Big deal. Read on.

Where's the "what's new"? Embedded in some text file on an ftp-site
somewhere, or perhaps it's in the tar file. OK, so I know how to go look,
but there isn't anything even in the announcement that tells me to do tha= t.
What if I was a relative-newbie? A youngster looking for a fun-new langua= ge
to teach themselves programming?

Everyone who's ever given more than fifteen minutes to getting an open sour=
ce=20
library to work knows the changelogs are bundled with the download by=20
convention. And since looking for "what's new" presumes the user has alread=
y=20
had "old" in hand, that's not an issue.

Said youngster is warmly welcome to post to here, comp.lang.ruby, the Ruby=
=20
=46orum, or the irc channel. He'll probably get all the help he asks for an=
d=20
then some. Treading forums is a survival ability gained early on in the=20
programmer's life.

Truth be said, the ruby-lang website could use a minor touchup to somehow d=
raw=20
attention to the primary form of support for all things Ruby. I have this=20
mild hallucination of one in the works being mentioned in a recent post=20
*grin*.

Am I asking a lot? Well pop over to python.org (and not python.com like I
keep making the mistake of going to!) and it's there - new release plus a
"what's new", same for the previous two releases. Installers for Windows
(32 and 64-bit!), and tar.gz's for everybody else (maybe now Mac's are
based on unix it's easy for them just to run "make"?).

Ahem. Google for "Ruby Installer'. Unsurprisingly, a site hosting a Ruby=20
installer for windows comes up as the first result. Case closed.

Bottom line: moan less, do more of everything else. The latter actually get=
s=20
you somewhere, and saves my brain center for flaming some strain.

David Vallner

 

[Ross Bamford]

And for what it's worth, when was the last time you saw Windows apps say
"hey, you downloaded me, wanna check my md5wassisname?".

<thinking aloud>
Hmm, maybe _that's_ why those guys are always complaining about viruses
and trojans ...
</thinking aloud>

 

[James Britt]

If I represent half of Ruby's users (other Windows users comfortably under
the rock) then I'm not alone in my experiences.

I don't think your experiences are representative of that large a group,
but I also don't think the numbers matter all that much.

There *is* a well-constructed (thanks, Curt!) Windows installer for
Ruby, so the larger issue may be to make it easier to find.

The Ruby home page should have clearly marked links for source code,
docs, pre-built binaries, "What's New", and so on.

That these things may be lacking in one way or another is not a
reflection of anyone's attitude (indeed, the great strides in Ruby
availability and popularity suggest the overall attitude is quite good),
but more a matter of time and resources. It's not that anyone is
indifferent or unaware, but just plain *busy*. (And keep in mind that
the opportunity to effect change is in the hands of everyone reading
this post. If you don't like the Ruby home page, and are dissatisfied
with waiting for a new one, design one yourself. Code talks, bullshit
walks. So to speak.)

Of course, community attitudes can change, and if the people on this
list stop being embracing and helpful, and start belittling people for
being less skilled, less experienced, or less informed, then Ruby *will*
suffer.

 

[James Britt]

Glenn Smith wrote:
...

I see quite often articles where it's suggested that Ruby could be the new
Java. Great, I hope it happens.

Be careful what you wish for.



--
James Britt

"In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly
universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by
uncertainty cannot be the truth."
- R. Feynman

 

[Dave Howell]

David - we can start a flame war, all rather pointless and doesn't do
you or
I or anybody else any favours. Or we can simply agree to shake hands
and
have a "virtual" beer.

Or you could ignore him. *I* certainly found comments like "It takes at
most five minutes over a slow connection of clicking around to figure
that out on the ruby-lang website, hopefully much less after
the revamp, and at most 30 seconds for anyone with mediocre google
skills to get the basic points right." to be not only annoyingly
condescending, but quite opposite of my experience, which seems to
involve spending a lot of time finding documentation misplaced,
dreadfully obscure, or just plain missing, and discovering new and
different ways for those oh-so-easy installers to fail.

I think he's probably wrong in believing that "You don't represent any
significant majority of Ruby users on any platform in my opinion." You
certainly are representing my opinions pretty accurately. On the other
hand, if he's right, then Ruby might well be going down the
incoherent-and-eventually-irrelevant path. I see there being a danger
of that, but I don't think it's at all inevitable, yet, thank goodness.

I think you've taken by initial post on this thread to be a real moan,
when
what I was really trying to do was simply put forward one user's
perspective
(ie. mine) of how Ruby was being presented to potential users. For
what
it's worth, I think your point "Programming languages and tools are not
end-user software." is quite wrong.

I agree. I have and use Ruby because I want to build programs and tools
for myself...in Ruby. The time I spend having to poop around with
recompiling Ruby, reinstalling Ruby, re-downloading source for Ruby,
debugging Ruby's installers, is wasted time. I wasted something like
three or four hours trying to get readline support working with irb,
IIRC.

The only installer tool I've used for Ruby or Ruby-related material
that has NOT errored out or installed something incorrectly
is...Apple's standard OSX installer. Unfortunately, as far as I can
tell, right now, only Ruby 1.8.2 is available in that installer. OTOH,
it includes Readline, Gems, Rails, TclTk, and the RI documentation (and
not just all using the same installer, but in the same package! Woo
hoo!), so I may just revert backwards to it, since Gem/Rails has not
yet installed correctly in three tries (one of those tries was on a
brand-new freshly installed OSX 10.3, no less), I have to install Ruby
and Readline by downloading and compiling source (the instructions for
using CVS for that failed on the second command), Rails with Gem, and
and I still have no idea why RDoc has completely failed to document
any of the core material. I've read over the stuff that came with the
source code, and done what it told me, and still, trying to get
information on, say, "Array" just gets me some useless chit-chat about
something called YARV.

I'm sure if I spent more time not trying to actually get work done, I
could get that fixed, by asking questions here. But I have a copy of
Pickaxe, so I just use that. If I have to spend time working on my car
instead of driving to work, then my car isn't very good. If I have to
spend time working on my computer instead of using it to get work done,
then my computer's not very good. And if I have to spend time sending
messages to Ruby-Talk trying to find out how to get Ruby to work
instead of programming, then Ruby's not very good.

I'll tell friends who are programmers about Ruby, but I haven't yet
recommended it to anybody. It's too unstable, too undocumented, too
hard to use. It's too young. I've completely shelved any Rails
development because hours of searching, and an inquiry posted here,
have revealed the absence of critical documentation for database
design. I just don't have the time to join a whole new mailing list and
see if I can coax somebody to document exactly what *all* of Rails'
assumptions about the underlying database are. I've already been much
the same thing with RubyCocoa, and now THAT is actually working as
expected, and I'm getting things out that work, so I'm just going to
stick with the system I've got that's running, and put off projects
that want Rails as long as possible, and hope it's more mature when I
come back around to looking at it.

I think the biggest difference between Ruby and Groovy is that there's
somebody who "owns" Ruby and is still actively (and effectively!)
involved: Matz. I do wish Ruby were a bit more specific. Parentheses
are sometimes but not always optional, and the like. (shudder) But it
seems to be headed in the right direction, and hopefully it won't be
too long before the amount of time one must spend working ON Ruby
instead of working WITH Ruby drops to nearly nothing.

I also agree with you, Glenn, in that I don't think these problems are
fundamental problems with Ruby itself, or its tools, or its community.
The problem is with people who don't recognize or admit that these ARE
problems, and would try to deny or excuse them. These issues can be,
and are being, resolved, but only as long as they're recognized as
issues that NEED to be resolved.

Pointing out weaknesses in something to its fan base doesn't always
make you friends, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. Thanks,
Glenn; hopefully your observations will help Ruby grow even stronger.

 

[James Britt]

I'm sure if I spent more time not trying to actually get work done, I
could get that fixed, by asking questions here. But I have a copy of
Pickaxe, so I just use that. If I have to spend time working on my car
instead of driving to work, then my car isn't very good. If I have to
spend time working on my computer instead of using it to get work done,
then my computer's not very good. And if I have to spend time sending
messages to Ruby-Talk trying to find out how to get Ruby to work instead
of programming, then Ruby's not very good.

To be fair, though, most people have little trouble getting Ruby
installed and running. I do not mean to belittle or discount your
experiences, but I've not had an issue with any release of Ruby when
packaged up as the "one-click" Windows installer (discounting preview
packages), nor have I had a problem installing final releases of Ruby
from source code on Linux. I used to have routine errors installing
Rails from gems, but that's no longer an issue.

If you have a problem with getting Ruby up and running, post to this
list. If asking for help here is not an attractive solution, then
indeed you are on your own.

...
I also agree with you, Glenn, in that I don't think these problems are
fundamental problems with Ruby itself, or its tools, or its community.
The problem is with people who don't recognize or admit that these ARE
problems, and would try to deny or excuse them. These issues can be, and
are being, resolved, but only as long as they're recognized as issues
that NEED to be resolved.

It isn't that people are busy denying that some people still have
problems, it's that people are just *busy*, period.

Drivers wanted.

 

[Gregory Brown]

I'm sure if I spent more time not trying to actually get work done, I
could get that fixed, by asking questions here. But I have a copy of
Pickaxe, so I just use that. If I have to spend time working on my car
instead of driving to work, then my car isn't very good. If I have to
spend time working on my computer instead of using it to get work done,
then my computer's not very good. And if I have to spend time sending
messages to Ruby-Talk trying to find out how to get Ruby to work
instead of programming, then Ruby's not very good.

Ruby is not about being very good. It's about world domination.

(C)M AT Z(S): How are you gentlemen !!
(C)M AT Z(S): All your base are belong to us.
(C)M AT Z(S): You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
(C)M AT Z(S): You have no chance to survive make your time.
(C)M AT Z(S): Ha Ha Ha Ha ....

See... thats matz... er... Cats... laughing at you. Move Zig!

On a serious note though, for an emerging language that only fairly
recently became popular in english speaking countries, I think Ruby is
great in terms of support.

If talking to people on #ruby-lang or RubyTalk or searching archives
and using a little google fu is not something you can afford right
now, no big deal. We'll still be here if you decide to come back
later on.

As a library developer (working on relatively small things at that),
I'd love to have some awesome documentation. Time constraints slow
that process. I can only imagine what those constraints are like on
the big things. So... just be patient. Or whenever you do end up
having to search a little deeper for something, write down what you
did and build a little tutorial. The community will appreciate it and
it'll help overall.

 

[Glenn Smith]

------=_Part_19757_14680114.1140475495393
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

Thanks for your words of support Dave - I was beginning to think I was in a
minority, but I'm sure I'm not!

One day I really will try to sit down and spend time developing something
for the community - be it Ruby or some other project. And in the meantime
I'm eternally grateful to others for the work they do and the help they giv=
e
to idiots like me!!!


Glenn

Or you could ignore him. *I* certainly found comments like "It takes at
most five minutes over a slow connection of clicking around to figure
that out on the ruby-lang website, hopefully much less after
the revamp, and at most 30 seconds for anyone with mediocre google
skills to get the basic points right." to be not only annoyingly
condescending, but quite opposite of my experience, which seems to
involve spending a lot of time finding documentation misplaced,
dreadfully obscure, or just plain missing, and discovering new and
different ways for those oh-so-easy installers to fail.

etc...

------=_Part_19757_14680114.1140475495393--

 

[Dave Howell]

To be fair, though, most people have little trouble getting Ruby
installed and running.

I know. I cannot believe my setups differ in some fundamental manner
from many other people, so why I suffer installer problems (always
different) remains something of a mystery to me. Sigh. I can't be
*that* stupid . . .

It isn't that people are busy denying that some people still have
problems, it's that people are just *busy*, period.

Er, my original post was prompted by a post that I found hard to
interpret as anything other than denying or attempting to excuse some
of the 'opportunities' still available to newbies coming to Ruby.

Happily, such attitudes are unquestionably a small minority.

[see next post...]

 

[Dave Howell]

Did you document this struggle (for success or failure)? To complain
about
a lack of documentation is fine. To be presented with an opportunity
to
help the situation, but instead just complain, that I find a bit rude.

Well, the last time I had a problem with the Ruby core itself, I just
hammered at it for a while until it worked. I think I just wiped my
downloaded source-install folder and started over, since some part of
the Make got bent during the first attempt.

My most recent major frustration was actually with RubyCocoa, and I did
post quite a few messages to the rubycocoa mailing list. Some of them,
er, reflected my frustration at the time more than might be considered
polite, but nobody there threw anything my way except helpful
suggestions. I discovered and pointed out that the Rubycocoa
installer choked on an install path with a space in it, which was
quickly fixed.

If you want to see some of my very early problems with installing Ruby,
you might check out
http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?InstallingElsewhere

Pointing fingers is fine, lending a hand will make you friends. I
don't
mean this is a flame, or a personal attack,

Nor did I take it as such.

So please, if you find rough spots, places that you spend hours that
you
think you should only spend minutes, document the steps you took, the
errors
you received, the problems you hit, and submit them. At the very least
you'll get a better informed answer, and at the best you'll have helped
produce new documentation.

I also offer in my defense <grin> my post to the recent thread here
entitled "postgres database"...


"A suggestion to the wider PostgreSQL-using Ruby populace; I was
somewhat confused until I figured out that I had to install at least
part of Postgres (bits of library files, I think) on the machine
running Ruby in order to talk to the database that's running on a
different system.

"If somebody should happen to write/update/expand upon the instructions
for installing Postgres support into Ruby to include the case where the
Ruby code is being installed and/or running on a system without local
Postgres, that'd probably be a good thing . . . Maybe some way to
permanently bind the libraries into the gem-installed Ruby bits?"


Plus my contributions (of some unknown value to the recent pile of
postings about "What is a symbol?"