"Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:d1sm88$93v$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> > It could be implemented in any language, including D.
>
> And you can embed compiled D programs in websites..?  I thought you meant writing a better web interface, in which case a scripting language would probably be the best choice.

All webalizer is is a cgi program that reads the news files and translates them into html on the fly. The 'archives' pages on the Digital Mars website are created by a simple D program that runs over the newsgroup files. It's a bit limited (won't handle html, attachments, and there's no [reply] button), but only because I haven't spent the time to make a real project out of it.

Frankly, I like the newsgroup system. It has its share of faults, I recognize that. Many of those faults are poor newsreaders, and are not inherent in the system. I'd be interested in forum software that is built on top of the newsgroup system - then people could either use the forum software, ala webalizer done much better, or can  access it using an ordinary newsreader. Both should be able to live together.

BTW, one thing I like a lot about newsgroups is that they require little in the way of active moderation. It's a set up and fuggetaboudit mechanism. For some reason, the Digital Mars newsgroups have been completely overlooked by spammers, link spamming, google bombers, etc. I'm concerned that using forum software will open the door to that, making it a constant (i.e. expensive) moderation and maintenance problem. Many forums require registration in order to post, to reduce robot spam. That's not for us - Digital Mars doesn't require registration for downloads or participation here.

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 13:59:22 -0800, Walter wrote:


[snip]
> BTW, one thing I like a lot about newsgroups is that they require little in the way of active moderation. It's a set up and fuggetaboudit mechanism. For some reason, the Digital Mars newsgroups have been completely overlooked by spammers, link spamming, google bombers, etc. I'm concerned that using forum software will open the door to that, making it a constant (i.e. expensive) moderation and maintenance problem. Many forums require registration in order to post, to reduce robot spam. That's not for us - Digital Mars doesn't require registration for downloads or participation here.

Walter, if you ever get to the point where you need some sort of automatic moderation, I can recommend the ListFilter product. It is also a simple set-and-forget operation that silently removes spam and questionable posts.

http://www.listfilter.com/

-- 
Derek
Melbourne, Australia
24/03/2005 9:34:49 AM

"Walter" <newshound@digitalmars.com> wrote in message news:d1sp6e$d76$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> All webalizer is is a cgi program that reads the news files and translates
> them into html on the fly. The 'archives' pages on the Digital Mars
> website
> are created by a simple D program that runs over the newsgroup files. It's
> a
> bit limited (won't handle html, attachments, and there's no [reply]
> button),
> but only because I haven't spent the time to make a real project out of
> it.

Oh!  Well then.

> Frankly, I like the newsgroup system. It has its share of faults, I
> recognize that. Many of those faults are poor newsreaders, and are not
> inherent in the system. I'd be interested in forum software that is built
> on
> top of the newsgroup system - then people could either use the forum
> software, ala webalizer done much better, or can  access it using an
> ordinary newsreader. Both should be able to live together.

That would be very nice.

> BTW, one thing I like a lot about newsgroups is that they require little
> in
> the way of active moderation. It's a set up and fuggetaboudit mechanism.
> For
> some reason, the Digital Mars newsgroups have been completely overlooked
> by
> spammers, link spamming, google bombers, etc. I'm concerned that using
> forum
> software will open the door to that, making it a constant (i.e. expensive)
> moderation and maintenance problem. Many forums require registration in
> order to post, to reduce robot spam. That's not for us - Digital Mars
> doesn't require registration for downloads or participation here.

I suppose that's a very big plus.  Additionally, as someone else said in this thread (or perhaps in one of the other branches of this thread.. confusing ;) ), having an NG tends to keep the insufferable idiot count down ;)

Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
> "J C Calvarese" <jcc7@cox.net> wrote in message news:d1qrjj$1ass$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> 
>>This works fairly well (if the post is old enough for it to be indexed):
> 
> 
> Which is precisely the problem with it ;) 

I didn't realize that Walter hasn't re-generated the archive pages (such as http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index.html) recently. It looks like it's been over eachthree months for each of them. I guess I was thinking he'd update them more frequently (perhaps monthly).

I'm still not complaining, though, since in the pre-archive era Google didn't index _any_ of the newsgroup posts. This new system (even if it's not updated as often as we might like) is still much better than the way it used to be.

Personally, I'm pretty good at digging up old posts due to the fact that I've read most of them. ;)

-- 
Justin (a/k/a jcc7)
http://jcc_7.tripod.com/d/

Unknown W. Brackets wrote:
...
> I can only imagine the complication to traffic law flying cars would introduce; and to think, cars - at least in America - have remained relatively constant for years upon years.

I don't care what you say -- flying cars are going to be awesome!

-- 
Justin (a/k/a jcc7)
http://jcc_7.tripod.com/d/

PHPBB is a giant, gaping security hole.  Everyone and their dog is out hacking PHPBB-based forums, it's gotten so bad that anyone who doesn't apply every new update the moment it's released is pretty much guaranteed to get rootkitted.

"bobef" <bobef_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:d1p0lh$2ct4$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Maybe this one is for Walter... Why we are using this ugly forum? It is so
> hard
> to find anything here or follow a conversation... PHPBB is free and I've
> set it
> fully working just by reading quick installation guide. It's looks far
> better
> and is easy to find anythig. It has cool search and is VERY easy to
> administrate. Also it is very customizable even for people like me who
> don't
> know php and all colourful crap could be easily removed.... I believe
> everyone
> who uses internet has seen it in action...
>
> 

Well, I run a firaly active forum and have been involved in several others - by active, I mean 500 posts per day or more - and the moderation they require is simply the moderation which isn't being done here.

Test posts deleted (these are uncommon anyway), topics/threads moved, and the like.  Many forums, especially the faster ones, have little moderation happening at all.

Spammers don't like having to activate their accounts, but I guess some like guest posting.  Link/Google spamming is an effect for blogs, mainly, again partially because of the above.

That said, I've also seen a great number of forums with guest posting enabled that don't have those problems.  As an example, take the forum for ConTEXT, an editor which has D highlighting:

http://forum.context.cx/

Guest posting is enabled there, and I haven't seen an act of moderation for over a month.  That forum, however, is fairly slow - about 10 posts a day, which is even slower than this newsgroup.

Indeed, that IDE's developer hasn't been around for weeks and the forum has been running itself.  There are simply people asking and answering questions, giving comments, etc.  Like here, except if I'm not at my own computer, I don't have to install and configure a client just to check to see if someone's responded with any sort of useful interface.

Anyway, I agree that newsgroups have their benefits.  I just don't agree that forums have all the problems you mention.

-[Unknown]


> BTW, one thing I like a lot about newsgroups is that they require little in
> the way of active moderation. It's a set up and fuggetaboudit mechanism. For
> some reason, the Digital Mars newsgroups have been completely overlooked by
> spammers, link spamming, google bombers, etc. I'm concerned that using forum
> software will open the door to that, making it a constant (i.e. expensive)
> moderation and maintenance problem. Many forums require registration in
> order to post, to reduce robot spam. That's not for us - Digital Mars
> doesn't require registration for downloads or participation here.

Walter wrote:
> "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:d1sm88$93v$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> 
>>>It could be implemented in any language, including D.
>>
>>And you can embed compiled D programs in websites..? 

Of course you can!

> All webalizer is is a cgi program that reads the news files and translates
> them into html on the fly. The 'archives' pages on the Digital Mars website
> are created by a simple D program that runs over the newsgroup files.

Oh, how much easier that would be on a Linux box.

I've got a "Server", 200MHz, 64MB, 1.6GB, found in a trash can. I run RedHat 6.3 on it, without GUI, and without monitor. Http is handled right in the OS kernel with the Tux web server (comes standard), which is ultra light on resources. Does CGI too. And Dscript (as I've explained about a month ago). Standard firewall, and absolutely no fear of viruses. Been on continuously for a few years. Not a single crash. (And no bouts of multiple reboots for weekly installs of windows security patches.)

While I haven't tested, I imagine it could handle all DM newsrgoups and the web interface, and nightly update runs of the archive pages.

And it is so easy to manage and set up. No guru-level unix knowledge is needed. (Of course, I've run Linux since 1993, so it's hard to tell.)

It handles backups of my CurrentStuff directories from my laptops and work station (dual boot FC3/W2000, 2x19" monitors, 1600x2400 pixels desktop (heh, and only 800MHz)). At times I run a MySql database on the server. Never had problems with thrashing or lack of horse power on it.

I use the machine with SSH. Having several SSH sessions from my Windows/Fedora machines obviates totally the need for a GUI for that machine.

-----------------

Funny thing is, Unix was created for the precise purpose of being an environment for software development. And it has a CV of 35 years at it.  And _all_ of Unix, and later Linux, is developed by the very people who use it. (Gives totally new meaning to "built for the user"!)

Contrast that with M$. "Sold to the bosses of the (L)users, and it shows." Ever seen a professional renovate a flat for his own family? Sure looks better than his regular client renovations. Not to mention all the other things we all know about Windows. Even Apple switched to unix.

I just can't imagine why folks do software development on Windows. (Except of course if doing Windows-only software.) I've worked in companies where they do Java for Windows. And the programmers all insist on using Linux for development, and Windows only for final tests.

The Windows guys don't even know what they're missing. (Grep? What's that?) A linux with a GUI misses the whole point. (I use the GUI, and so should everybody else, -- but the existence of the GUI totally hides the real differences and important things between unix and windows.)

-----------------

<Whoa, Georg!> I'm not angry here, I just got carried away. :-)

*THE* DIFFERENCE between unix and widows is: a windows machine is a dead piece of single-user iron. (Of lately, pretending otherwise.)

A unix machine is an alive entity. It does things. On its own. There's a soul in there.

Using a unix machine is *DISCUSSING* *WITH* *THAT* *SOUL*.

You have a language that is composed of commands and names of programs, switches and parameters. Those are combined to make sentences. You really discuss with another entity.

(Compare that with surviving as an adult in our society. If you only knew a dozen words, and were unable to construct sentences out of them. You'd be put in an institution for retards.)

The CLI is not just for running a program at a time, it's the mouth and ears of you both. The sentences say things like:

- If there are files in this directory tree that contain the word Agriculture, make a new directory called agri, and make links in it to all these files.

- Convert all the D source files below to unix line ending.

- Which d source files are newer than their .o counterpart?

- What was the first time in February I logged in here?

- Give me examples from the hard disk, of how "file" is used inside Phobos.

- Download every month all of the D documentation from Digital Mars, and compare that to the previous month. Save the diffs in dmd/doc-diffs directory.

- Give me a list of all html documents that mention GC. I want the list to include the name of the files, and the 3 lines around each mention, with html filtered away.

- Give me the same list, without the filenames.

- Give me a list of all files where the word public is used on the line preceding the function definition, and not on the same line.

- If there are files in the above list, make a temporary directory with links to each file, so that I can later conveniently study just those files.

- Write a script that sends separately all files created between 6pm and 8pm last Saturday, to the backup server in Ohio.

- Run that script tonight at 2am, send Peter a mail with possible error messages from the transfer.

- Give me a list of all the links in my browser bookmarks, that have gone dead.

- Erase all dead liks from my bookmarks (without using the browser).

- On every Tuesday and Thursday, pack all source code files modified since last time, in an archive and send that to my other unix machine, in the short-term backup directory. The archive sould be named YYYYMMDDHHMM-this-server-name.

- Give me a list of all the child processes Dtest01 has currently running.

** All of the above are sentences written on a single command line. **

Other dead-easy things (at least compared to the effort of attempting the same on Windows):

 - Your machine has an ADSL or dialup connection to the internet, so the IP number changes unpredictably. You have a homepage somewhere on the net. You want to use your machine from anywhere in the world. Well, add a few lines to the network script, that upload a page to your home page server, containing a link to the current IP of your machine. This way it gets run everytime the IP changes.

 - So you are on an expensive modem-dialup-only connection? And you'll do a 4 week trip abroad. How do you save money, and still be able to use your machine? Well, decide on the times you are likely to use your machine from abroad, and then have it dial up the net, for 3 minutes. It could do that like every 3 hours, or at 7, 8, and 9 pm. If you log in (see previous tip), the machine doesn't hang up until you leave.

 - Using a unix machine from anywhere is no different than using it at the keyboard. Forgetting to do something before you leave home/office is no problem. You can do _everything_ from _anywhere_. Try that with a windows machine. (Here too M$, etc. pretend you can (sort-of) do it.)

 - Get your files, upload your files, do compiling, use an IDE, whatever. Actually, you get more horsepower from you machine if you use it from another unix machine: the windowing system and the IDE GUI run on your end! So your own machine has more memory and cpu left for actually doing compiling or whatever real work. Oh, and the entire connection is encrypted, of course, by default.

 - How about freely getting ideas, and implementing them, instead of buying a new shrink-wrap for each (if there even is one) for big money (and which you have to rebuy for every new Windows version) and the legal hassles of copyright and licenses.

 - You and your girlfriend study, but can only afford a single laptop. Well, with an old monitor, a keyboard and a mouse, you can use the same machine _at_the_same_time_. And no shortage of horse power. And your sister can use it from school while you two use it at home. (After all, unix was always meant to be used by several people at once.)

 - Want to use the same Browser history and bookmarks if you alternate between windows and unix usage on the same machine? Piece of cake.

 - How about getting every piece of software you'll ever need to buy, just as a side effect of installing the OS? For free.

 - How about doing absolutely whatever you please with your computer, instead of what Bill thought appropriate for you?

 - How about _never_ buying a new computer again?? Just buy three year old second hands from now on -- while getting more net horsepower than with leading-edge Wintel crap? Look at the savings! And the OS comes free, too. And all the apps.

 - Want to change an app? Just get the source, tweak the source, and run make. Wanna do that on windows? Ha!

 - Wanna do something that's impossible? Just google around, somebody has already done it.

 - How about compiling huge apps while surfing the net, archiving a large directory tree, editing in the IDE, and serving files to www users. Without experiencing a lack of horse power!

D is not Windows-only, so it should be developed on unix.

Georg Wrede wrote:

> I've got a "Server", 200MHz, 64MB, 1.6GB, found in a trash can. I run RedHat 6.3 on it, without GUI, and without monitor.

While there is nothing wrong with Linux, running a Red Hat installation
that old is not really very secure... ("no fear of viruses" ? Really ?)

Better to run something that is still supported, like Debian GNU/Linux ?

> <Whoa, Georg!> I'm not angry here, I just got carried away. :-)
> 
> *THE* DIFFERENCE between unix and widows is: a windows machine is a dead piece of single-user iron. (Of lately, pretending otherwise.)

As the old saying goes:
  Linux is for people who hate Windows,
  BSD is for people who love Unix... :-)

> D is not Windows-only, so it should be developed on unix.

GDC already is... DMD, however, is not. (both use the "D" language)

I think it is up to each and every developer (and user) to choose
what operating system they want. And Walter seems to prefer Windows ?

I do not.
--anders

"Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:d1sti2$h9u$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Additionally, as someone else said in
> this thread (or perhaps in one of the other branches of this thread..
> confusing ;) ), having an NG tends to keep the insufferable idiot count
down
> ;)

Last night I attended the NWCUG meeting. Mapquest showed the location as being somewhere else (an empty lot) some distance away from the actual location. The building was electronically locked, and had incorrect instructions on how to open the door.

We joked that it was an attempt to filter the idiots out <g>.