Re: New science/informatics interest area?

[davido]

Adding major sections is something not done often. Think about how broad the sections are: SoPW is for all questions, Meditations is for all Perlish discussion that doesn't involve questions, PMD is for Monastery discussions, Obfuscation, CUfP, Code, etc... all but one (PMD) relating to Perl, the language. CuFP is essentially applied Perl, but it's still Perl.

If we start adding topic-specific sections, we'll have to add CGI / Web, Science, Networking, System Administration, Software Development and Prototyping, Finance, Manufacturing, Accounting, and all the other things to which Perl is frequently applied.

I get that science is cool (among us geeks), and that it has a certain sexiness to it among this kind of a group. But it's not a Perl-specific topic, IMHO.

As for adding Q&A sections, recently we added a Testing section. I had high hopes that it would quickly be populated with all sorts of interesting FAQ-like Q's and A's. That hasn't happened, for the most part. I don't see Q&A as being a very good place to start a Science section either.

I don't mean to just poo-poo any suggestion for new PerlMonks sections, or Q&A categories. I just think that we have to remember that this is a Perl site, and that in the interest of keeping it simple, we should keep it simple. ;)

Update: Having said all that, and subsequently giving it a little more thought, Perl for Biologists could be a category of Perl type questions and answers. If there is enough support for it in response to this thread, I would not oppose the creation of such a category under 'Categorized Questions & Answers'.