Are groups like comp.unix.programmer still alive?

Question

If you see the posts at http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.programmer/topics?pli=1, most of them are spam.

Are these com groups still good places to visit for programmers, if yes, how do you filter the spam? Why aren't they moderated anyways?

Answer 1

Quite alive!

I visit some several times a day, and they are very active. Notable examples include, comp.lang.fortran, comp.soft-sys.matlab, comp.lang.python and so on.

But, if you are troubled by spam, and for many other reasons, please take my advice, and stop using Google Groups. They are one of the worst things that ever happened to Usenet in terms of spam. Get yourself a solid newsreader (Forte Agent for example; if not even Thunderbird will do) and follow newsgroups from a dedicated server. There are quite a lot of them that offer free access to non-binaries groups, and if you're a student or a member of the academia, your University is bound to have one as well.

Answer 2

I visit comp.lang.lisp daily. There's the occasional flamewar, but also informative discussion about the finer points of Lisp and program design.

The better news servers, Eternal September for example, filter out most of the spam.