Erlang forums (was Re: PING TEST)

[Yao Bao]

> 
>> I think keeping the mailing list for the rest of the community would be
>> worthwhile.
> 
> Absolutely, then I can choose my own interface, read offline more
> easily, etc. - forums-by-mail does tend to be very much a second-class
> experience.
> 

Having the ability to go offline completely is a great feature. It means
things are still under control.

Erlang has this feature, I mean, if someone really wants to understand
how Erlang works, a complete copy can be obtained, a great offline
documentation can be built, and finally we can dig the source code to
find answers. And a copy of a printed book is another great offline
example as well.

I'm really serious about the foundations/dependencies
(which version as well) my work depends upon even though it seems
ok if I just ignore it. This is all about control.

Take a web product which provide services to end users. It is hard, but
if the product creators really care about their product (and their user),
what is being used for creating the product needs to be understandable or
at least enumerable.

For example:
- the hardware platform -> amd64
- the operating system -> FreeBSD 13
- server side software -> Erlang 23, C89 (ANSI C)
- client side software -> JavaScript (ES6)

If I got a problem and really want to address it, I know exactly where to
go. Online (always latest) is a great feature which internet gave us,
which is great, but the history contains valuable information
(mainly what mistakes we did) as well.

Cheers,
Yao