Slashdot Mirror
New Slash Version v1.0.3
pudge writes "Yo. We released slash-1.0.3. Bug reports and CVS and file downloads are on SourceForge. Slashcode is now hosted at Exodus with Slashdot and Freshmeat. "
The scary part is that now Slashdot and Slashcode are totally synched up... which means programmers can e-mail diffs instead of bug reports and feature suggestions (hint hint hint!)
Slashcode and Slashdot are synched up? Who are you, and what did you do with CmdrTaco?! We demand his release!!
Constitutionally Correct
the real wonderful part is that there will now be lots more 'pairs of eyes' checking the slashcode for loopholes and bugs that will allow quicker bugfixes and a more robust system...
ai731
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"I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent"
For the last few weeks, Slashdot has add annoying "pauses" where the browser will connect to the server, but no data will ever come. These pauses last for anything from one minute to 30. Then I have to squish all my posting in before the next piece of downtime.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Rewrite it in VBScript so that it runs locally on compliant browsers.
Sorry..... I'll shoot myself now.
Here's a few things to bandy about (no need for actual diffs).
Theming
Everyone bitches about the colors, especially in the BSD and Apache sections (and, I must say, YRO isn't much better). Why not setup a colors preferences panel? That shouldn't be too hard to implement.
Removal of Comments
Given the recent controversy over Microsoft and what not, give users the ability to remove their own comments, maybe with a karma penalty or something. We can moderate our system, but we can't responsibly manage it.
That's just a couple of ideas, and there's tons more, I'm sure. On to Slash 2.0!
As to us "not knowing SQL" (I am not sure if that is tongue-in-cheek or not), well, all I can say is that there is a lot of really old code in there. Sure, you are going to see a lot of cruft. We're working hard on rewriting major portions of the thing. You may see some code in there that does nothing at all, or does nothing useful, or does something bad. All I can say to that is "duh." Send a patch or a bug report if you like, we will certainly appreciate it.
But don't bother pointing out that, gasp, bugs and bad code are in Slash. That's a given. That's why we are working so hard on it and devoting so many resources to it (four full-time developers, IIRC, not including CmdrTaco, plus several more, like Cliff, who are splitting time with Slash and other projects). The code was pretty good for what it was, but over time it got crufty, and now we are going back and fixing it. That's how these things work.
The most important goal of this change should be code compactness, whereby repetitive use of bgcolor, font, align, etc is replaced with simplified CSS classes. This should significantly reduce bandwidth requirements per user, most important considering the ever-solid limit of 56k dial-up.
While it is nowhere near valid HTML 4, users of the very latest nightly builds of Mozilla (an important display bug was recently fixed), or the excellent IE5 for Windows (I hate Microsoft more than YOU do, but their HTML rendering engine is admittedly a work of art), can check out the following link here: whirlpool.net.au
It's my hobby site with a slash-esque feel, written totally by hand and powered with Cold Fusion (it's no PHP, but it's easy and fast). The design concept, programming, content and everything else was done by me.
I would be very interested in donating a design structure for Slashdot, keeping in mind download times, the legacy look-and-feel, and HTML 4 compliance. test
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Computers are useless: they can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
I added a special "Slashdot" bug group on SourceForge yesterday, so you can submit your Slashdot bugs in the same place, but tag them as specific to Slashdot if you like.
And yeah, I suppose this should be somewhere on the site in a FAQ or something. I just mentioned it to CowboyNeal.
Given these, let's look at PHP/MySQL. You've got the web server, PHP, Zend, the Zend Optimizer, the PHP application, the database driver, the database server and the database itself.
That's a lot of components, and a LOT of overhead in lines of code. And that means lots of bugs.
IMHO, the only conclusion I can reach is that, if I were to write a Slash-like system, I would start by throwing out the web server. It doesn't really DO anything for you, it just copies data from one place to another. A 4 or 5 line program could do that. That gives you enormous speed-up (by freeing up RAM as well as by having a much faster server).
After the webserver, I'd have to throw out the database. Each URL points to a unique entry, so I can just as easily use sparse arrays and hashing. A database is just wasted overhead.
That leaves PHP, Zend and the Zend optimizer. Since the rest is now direct, in-line code, you're better off with C. This removes 3 packages and 5 interfaces, all of which would rip out yet more bugs.
In the end, the entire Slash/Perl|PHP/DB/httpd gumph, with the potential for a huge number of security holes and other assorted bugs, could be replaced by a much smaller, specialised C app that did everything.
(In practice, I doubt anyone'd ever want to write such an app. The Unix practice of reusable components has proven good enough, to the point that everything is done that way, now, even if for any given task, it's horribly inefficient and very prone to errors.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I think that the check box should be used to get your' +1, i.e. the default is the normal posting level and, furthermore, that your karma should go down by 1 for each +1 bonus you give yourself.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor