On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 04:24:17PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 8/22/2018 10:28 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> > I don't argue against the usefulness of the features that github provides, but I'm also wary of the fact that it's basically a walled garden -- there's no simple way I know of to extract data like pull requests, comments, cross-references, etc..  I mean, it's *possible* to write a web crawler that does just that, but such functionality is second-class, and one might argue, that it is possible at all is merely a happy accident, since github's very design seems to be geared at drawing people to centralize everything on github.  It's not quite at the point of vendor lock-in, but it's certainly uncomfortably close, in my view.
> 
> As for github comments, they get echoed to me as emails. So I have an email archive of them.

That's good to know.

Still, an export function that will give you your data in some computer-parseable format would have been nice.


T

-- 
Why can't you just be a nonconformist like everyone else? -- YHL

On Wednesday, 22 August 2018 at 23:53:46 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 04:24:17PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On 8/22/2018 10:28 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>> > I don't argue against the usefulness of the features that github provides, but I'm also wary of the fact that it's basically a walled garden -- there's no simple way I know of to extract data like pull requests, comments, cross-references, etc..  I mean, it's *possible* to write a web crawler that does just that, but such functionality is second-class, and one might argue, that it is possible at all is merely a happy accident, since github's very design seems to be geared at drawing people to centralize everything on github.  It's not quite at the point of vendor lock-in, but it's certainly uncomfortably close, in my view.
>> 
>> As for github comments, they get echoed to me as emails. So I have an email archive of them.
>
> That's good to know.
>
> Still, an export function that will give you your data in some computer-parseable format would have been nice.
>
>
> T

They have an API for taht, and it looks like people have made programs to create backups of it with the api.

https://developer.github.com/v3/
https://hackage.haskell.org/package/github-backup

On 8/21/2018 2:41 PM, tide wrote:
> What about if you accidentially press a button that posts the comment?

That's really up to your NNTP client's design, which we didn't implement. There are lots of NNTP clients to choose from.

> Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature?

It's a useless feature.

Formatting is needed for longer form text, which is not really appropriate for the forum. Forum posts should be short and to the point - posting an article or manifesto should be posted separately, with a link to it in the forum.

Also, there is no need to post pictures, emoji, banners, or other cruft one sees in other forums. Especially pictures, as those eat up server space and bandwith at a terrifying rate.

Nearly 20 years of the D forum consumes 2,800,000 4K blocks, or somewhat over a gigabyte. Not bad.

On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 01:43:54 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 8/21/2018 2:41 PM, tide wrote:
>> What about if you accidentially press a button that posts the comment?
>
> That's really up to your NNTP client's design, which we didn't implement. There are lots of NNTP clients to choose from.
>
>> Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature?
>
> It's a useless feature.
>
> Formatting is needed for longer form text, which is not really appropriate for the forum. Forum posts should be short and to the point - posting an article or manifesto should be posted separately, with a link to it in the forum.
>
> Also, there is no need to post pictures, emoji, banners, or other cruft one sees in other forums. Especially pictures, as those eat up server space and bandwith at a terrifying rate.
>
> Nearly 20 years of the D forum consumes 2,800,000 4K blocks, or somewhat over a gigabyte. Not bad.

Forum posts should be informative and contain meaningful text that will be understandable for readers. And if required, it should contain videos / images / screenshots / quotes / links, etc. And should be written so that it is convenient to read - with formatting, highlighting, indentation...

It is very strange to hear from programmer that "syntax formatting" is useless feature.

Possibility to vote for message, append "thank you" and mark some message as an answer it also increases readability.

Any self-respecting website related to programming or developing something, has in its composition a place where people can comfortably and freely discuss pressing issues. Not some weird news group.

On 31/08/2018 10:16 PM, Andrey wrote:
> Any self-respecting website related to programming or developing something, has in its composition a place where people can comfortably and freely discuss pressing issues. Not some weird news group.

Feel free to argue this for projects like the Linux kernel.
If you succeed it is safe to say we will too.

On Friday, 31 August 2018 at 10:37:05 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
> On 31/08/2018 10:16 PM, Andrey wrote:
>> Any self-respecting website related to programming or developing something, has in its composition a place where people can comfortably and freely discuss pressing issues. Not some weird news group.
>
> Feel free to argue this for projects like the Linux kernel.
> If you succeed it is safe to say we will too.

Some subsystems of the Linux kernel like DRM are migrating their development to GitLab. They'll still be using mailing lists as the primary communication channel, but perhaps using GitLab merge requests and issues is not far off either. Sometimes when the right incentives like easier infrastructure management and developer productivity are in place unthinkable things like that do happen. Only time will tell ;)

https://about.gitlab.com/2018/08/20/freedesktop-org-migrates-to-gitlab/

On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 01:43:54 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 8/21/2018 2:41 PM, tide wrote:
>> What about if you accidentially press a button that posts the comment?
>
> That's really up to your NNTP client's design, which we didn't implement. There are lots of NNTP clients to choose from.

Don't use a NNTP client, I prefer to just use a browser.

>> Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature?
>
> It's a useless feature.
>
> Formatting is needed for longer form text, which is not really appropriate for the forum. Forum posts should be short and to the point - posting an article or manifesto should be posted separately, with a link to it in the forum.
>
> Also, there is no need to post pictures, emoji, banners, or other cruft one sees in other forums. Especially pictures, as those eat up server space and bandwith at a terrifying rate.
>
> Nearly 20 years of the D forum consumes 2,800,000 4K blocks, or somewhat over a gigabyte. Not bad.

So you've never posted a snippet of code on here? I honestly doubt that. Syntax formatting is useful even if you only post 2 lines of code. No wonder these boards are the way they are with opinions like that.

On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 01:43:54 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> Nearly 20 years of the D forum consumes 2,800,000 4K blocks, or somewhat over a gigabyte. Not bad.

Using years is about a pointless as using lines of code to evaluate a project. There's some sites that have received more throughput of users and their activity in one year than this site has seen in 20.

On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 01:43:54 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature?
>
> It's a useless feature.
>
> Formatting is needed for longer form text, which is not really appropriate for the forum. Forum posts should be short and to the point - posting an article or manifesto should be posted separately, with a link to it in the forum.

Moreover, for those who really want to show their code:
There are sites like run.dlang.io or dpaste.dzfl.pl. They don't just store one's code snippets for viewing them with syntax highlighting, they also come with the handy feature of allowing one to execute them directly via their webservice.

On 8/31/2018 3:16 AM, Andrey wrote:
> Forum posts should be informative and contain meaningful text that will be understandable for readers. And if required, it should contain videos / images / screenshots / quotes / links, etc.

It already highlights quotes and links. As for the rest, the D forum is not a free hosting service for pictures, videos, manuscripts, music, or project source code. There are free services for that (youtube, imgur, github, etc.) which you're welcome to link to from a post.

Posts should be short, on topic and to the point. Quoting of the antecedent should be minimal.


> It is very strange to hear from programmer that "syntax formatting" is useless feature.

It's not useful for snippets of code. Worse, often people want to write grammatically incorrect code for purposes of illustration, highlighting that would be a nuisance.