Subj : What I Don't Like About Synchronet
To : Mvan Le
From : mark lewis
Date : Thu May 03 2007 03:55 pm
ml> MvanL> * I don't like the board/sub-board (RA-style
ml> MvanL> group/subgroup) file/message area categorising method.
ml> what "RA-style group/subgroup" style? don't use it if
ml> you don't like it... RA didn't have it for a long time
ml> but it was one of the most requested functions asked
ml> for...
MvanL> That's my point - they opted for the current style. I think the
MvanL> Maximus style is better.
i still don't understand what you are calling "style"??
MvanL> I'm not fully purposely descending into a BBS software war,
me either... i'm just trying to figure out what you are trying to describe and
respond to that...
MvanL> [...]
ml> the biggest "problem" comes from folk who expect every
ml> board to be just like every other... that happens
ml> because they are not aware that the sysop has the
ml> freedom, with properly designed software, to make
ml> things look and act like they want and not just get
ml> stuck with "skinning" capabilities...
MvanL> Yeah but it comes at a cost whereby SysOps must hack or work
MvanL> around problems because their chosen BBS software doesn't
MvanL> inherently support those features.
hunh?? nonono... i'm talking about joe sysop and john sysop who both download
the same bbs software and install it without any modification using all the
default screens and menus... users to their boards see the same presentation...
now, one of those users calls fred sysop's bbs which is also running the exact
same software but fred has taken the time to "skin it" by making his own
screens... next door to fred, is alex who also runs the same bbs software...
alex has gone even further because he has found the menu editor and come up
with his own menu keys and option layouts... alex comes from an old mainframe
style world where everything is chosen from menus of no more then ten (10)
options... that makes it very easy cause there's only 0-9 to hit but it makes
it more complicated because now there have to be dozens more menu screens...
none of the above have "hacked" anything or had to work around any problems as
there are none... now, the callers, on the other hand, may be a bit confused or
maybe not...
MvanL> For example it'd be a nightmare to mimmick the Maximus area
MvanL> divisioning behaviour in Synchronet / RA where areas are
MvanL> numerically defined instead of alphanumerically capable.
but it isn't all that hard... one could easily do it with a script... but yes,
alphanumeric access to an area may be easier for some... but it also all
depends on what you get used to, too... i have to wonder, though, at what
happens when things are moved around and reorganized... with RA, there are two
numbers with each area... one used for display and the other used behind the
scenes for the record number of the area definition as well as the datafile
names... so i can "renumber" my areas without changing anything and external
software won't loose track as long as they go by the proper id number... this
type of thing also comes into play with offline mail setups... in the past, if
a sysop added new areas by inserting them instead of appending them, users who
downloaded offline mail before the change and uploaded after the change would
inevitably get some messages posted to the wrong message areas thru no fault of
their own... no fault, really, of the sysop, either... many folk like to see
stuff alphabetically instead of in arrival order...
ml> MvanL> But Scott Dudley disappared off the face of the earth. I
ml> MvanL> don't blame him. So now there's only a half-arsed
ml> MvanL> intermittently commited ragtag user group left.
ml> apparently you don't have all the facts, either... bob
ml> jones is limited by a job contract in what he can do as
ml> far as developing and coding anything... the
ml> limitations of that contract are almost expired...
ml> until that expiration time passes, he felt that it was
ml> safer for the existing code to not be handled by
ml> himself so that it would not be misclassified and have
ml> that company he was contracted with trying to claim it
ml> for their own...
MvanL> I remember that thread.
it didn't seem that you did...
MvanL> I appreciate all efforts and contributions towards Maximus.
MvanL> That doesn't change the fact that there has been nothing new
MvanL> since 2003,
what do you expect to see as a new feature?
MvanL> and Bob only expressed an interest in cleaning up some bugs and
MvanL> making a Linux installer.
i see nothing wrong with that... the original main goal was simply to get the
original code working in the *nix environment... seems to me that that is still
the goal and it simply hasn't been accomplished as of yet mainly due to that
interruption that bob faced with that contract job...
MvanL> Eventhough this is much (much) more than what I've done or
MvanL> proposed to date, it does not constitute a concerted effort to
MvanL> revive Maximus and therefore does not change my view of a
MvanL> ragtag team (if 1 person can be called a team).
you can't blame bob for what happened to him WRT that job he took... truth is
that most bbs software is a one man endevor and always has been... i'm aware of
only two or three packages that were more than one person teams but every one
of them started as a one person project... two of those are dead and gone and
another has gone back to a one person endevor...
