After your inspiring speach about Jabber. You never really tell us exactly what it is, or provide a link for more info. A link wold be nice. We like links.
I'll try to help. Here is Jabber's main page. The first thing you need to do is Grab a client My personal favourite is Psi, a crossplatform slim and slick client that I feel is better because I can opt to have incoming events as messages or chats (or just leave them as they came), opt to pop up the window, automatically show the message, or just flash in the tray (especially important when you type over 100WPM and someone messages you out of the blue), it's open source, I've created a few patches to help make the client better (IMO), and it's under active development. Psi also has a message/chat history (searchable) and supports multiple identities (online at the same time, in the same client) and Jabber itself features multiple instances of a particular Jabber User (home/work, etc.). Features coming up in Psi are groupchat (in 0.8.7, due out Very Soon Now), File Transfer (that works behind NAT, coming in 0.9), pluggable storage for history and prefs (SQL, etc.) and other leading-edge stuff for Jabber. Justin (the lead developer of Psi) seems to have a real knack for making a solid, stable client and pushing the envelope with the new Jabber feature drafts.
Oh yes, Psi also supports SSL (client--server) and there is a Jabber draft for SSL between servers, so your inane chatter is kept private with strong encryption. *cough*ICQ*cough*
Psi is a Qt app, but there are CLI clients, Perl module clients, GTK clients, Win32-only clients, Java clients, JScript clients... Hell there's even a Flash client. The protocol is completely open.
Perhaps one of the biggest assets to Jabber is that it is decentralized. There are many public servers, and you can set your own up (hell even Debian has packages for it!). [warning - the public servers link has a session-id, I don't know if it'll work for anyone else]
The biggest problem with Jabber is that it is still a little tricky for newbies to get in to -- there is no "download this, it registers you with one of the common servers" links (not that I'm aware of anyway), so you need someone to either set it up for you or point you off to a public server. A lot of the clients are crap (a common problem with OSS, I'm afraid). Sometimes the transports (gateways to other IM systems, like ICQ, AIM, Y!, etc.) don't work because the other systems find a common server and shut down access to their network from it, but if you run your own server or you are on a small server, you won't even blip on their radar.
I really like it. I used to be an ICQ-head (my UIN is just over 1-mil) but when they started throwing up ads and adding more and more crap to the client I bailed) and I couldn't find a decent Jabber client (one that didn't pop up messages and take focus, how F#%#^T#$'ing irritating!) for a while, but now I am a very happy Jabber user. Hell even my wife, mom and grandmother use it (seriously) -- it works great for computer-cautious people because of the simplicity.
Do you seriously believe that even if every single member of the tech community, however loosely you choose to define that, started using Jabber or some other sort of open protocol system to chat with, that it would amount to a portion of the total IM user base large enough for AOL or some other company to even notice?
Of course not, don't be absurd. What he's trying to do is start a domino effect. If you start using Jabber and you get your Aunt Tilly to use it because she needs to talk to you to help her get her printer printing those cute cross-stitch patterns, that's one person. The she realizes there's no ads and the client is small and simple to use, she will tell her friends at all about it one afternoon during tea. And one of Aunt Tilly's friend's nephews happens to know a bit about these computer things and you know, she thinks he uses Jabber too... The effect is slow as hell but once it reaches a critical mass (which it may never do) it will cascade just like ICQ did (and MSN, and Y! and all the others).
This will especially be accelerated if you tell Aunt Tilly that she can talk on Jabber, MSN and Y! with one client. That is a little counter-productive but once her friends start using the Jabber clients there is a diminished need for the transports which helped bring her online with Jabber in the first place.
So no, I don't think he meant that the tech community on its own would cause the revolution. It'll definately be a distributed effort.
I do have first hand experience with non-trivial Perl projects though and I can say they are much more difficult to maintain. Everyone who writes Perl seems to have their own style which makes the code very difficult to follow. Even with very good coding guidlines there are just so many normal things you do in Perl that make the code hard to follow.
I too have first-hand experience with non-trivial Perl projects -- maintain control, hire disciplined people, and there is no problem. The same is true for practically any language.
Let's face it -- you need the discipline to write good software period -- why not use a language that you can pull out the stops with when its necessary?
And here's a few reasons why I'll never have a Python project in my office:
forced formatting
forced formatting, and
forced formatting
Furthermore, strong typing doesn't help you write better algorithms. Coming from a strong C background, I see no problems with typecasting away to different data types as I see fit. Of course, you have the opportunity to shoot yourself in the foot, but that's one of the risks you take when you carry a gun instead of a textbook. (I'm not ripping on Python's ability to do real work, as that is not the case.)
Honestly, I don't know what people think is such a great deal about strong typecasting. I use perl's strict mode, full warnings and taint as a default -- but then I code my Perl to a much higher standard than the script kiddies.
Of course, you could always use a real language that enforced coding discipline.
What, like Python, where my indentation is part of my structure? Take that and shove it up your ass, I decide how code shall look, not the language. Or rather, I will choose a language to code in that I am comfortable with, not the opposite.
Why do some programmers insist that its more important to be able to lash up buggy code in an eye blink than to write maintainable, bug free code in the first place? Is debugging and maintenance time somehow cheaper?
Why do some people think that strong typing, forced formatting and other insanities are any substitute for well-disciplined programmers? I'll gladly pay for a good programmer rather than try and figure out the algorithmic nightmares some people toss off, even in strongly-typed languages.
The Second Law of Themodynamics suggest that you will be proven wrong.
This isn't physics; it's programming. As a NSPHB (not so pointy-haired boss) I can eliminate people who do not have the discipline to code cleanly, irrespective of the language.
Re:Perl was ruled out WHY???
on
Yahoo Moving to PHP
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I agree, I just thought I'd point out that this doesn't change the fact that perl is HELL to maintain for larger projects:)
Bullshit, or at least bullshit that Perl makes it harder to maintain than any other language.
Code properly, document correctly and adhere to the same design rules for any other maintainable project (which includes firing the assholes who think that obfuscated perl has a place in a maintainable project) and you will have no more difficulty in maintaining a Perl project than you will any other.
The fact that perl lets you create a mess may be open to debate, but it certainly doesn't mean it will be a mess.
PHP-Nuke, PostNuke and all variants are an exceedingly AWFUL way to share info -- click here, click there, stupid avatars, no threading, no straightforward text interface, searching rarely works properly, themes, ads, smileys, animations and more crap than you can shake a stick at.
Give me newsgroups or a mailing list. But please no PHPNuke or derivatives.
PHP is like PERL made for the web, it has easier access to databases than any other language I know of
I disagree; Perl's DBI interface is *far* simpler (and the functions are not DB-specific) like PHP's. (I think PHP solved that in the not too distant past though)
Nevertheless, the distinction between "published" and "publicized" is an important one.
Agreed. Absolutely.
Yes, we know what you meant. All the same, please refrain from posting stuff to the Internet, and then complaining that it was being accessed even though it wasn't "published".
Yes, it was the wrong word to use. However the response was used only to be nit-picky, which is the reason for my response.
Wrong. You've had several of your published but unpublicized directories found. Once its on the webserver and capable of being served to the public, its published.
Semantic and/or pedantic arguments don't win any points with me. You knew what I meant: Google does indeed try to spider all documents on a website, whether they have linkage or not. I'm no more wrong than you are "smart" by nit-picking.
Google plays tricks with servers. With apache, for instance it tries the venerable www.site.com/?M=A and ?S=D, ?N=A etc. tricks. If Apache isn't locked down, it'll happily bypass index.html and give you directory listings, and then spider any subdirectories using the same method. I had several of my unpublished directories found by google this way.
But is the quality of the $40 one made "just outside Hong Kong" the same as the $100 made in the USA?
Having worked with several US and Taiwanese manufacturers, I would say it's a toss-up. Some US manufacturers are far more expensive and the quality is so poor you'd think it were assembled by chimps.
I used to work for a company that did solutions like that. What we normally did was use ISA Micom cards (FXS). Micom are now owned by Nortel, and last I checked there were thousands of these cards still available through distributers.
Long shot here, but I'd like to talk to you more about this. Can you email me?
I agree it can get silly, however the law is the law. Sure you can grep etc. and find a mail, however firstly, what if you make a typo and forget to pipe and output all the guys mail to the screen, and secondly, what if they are using Outlook?
Are there no clauses for accidental exposure in the UK? Seems awfully strict to me.
If you have ever conducted a restore over many tapes (remember 6525 tapes?) you know that if tape 3 out of 5 is bad your screwed.
That's why I use afio instead of tar. bad tapes just affect the files in the bad parts of the tape since each file is compressed individually instead of as one like tar.
It's not ethical because for starters it might breach the Human Rights Act - not sure if this applies in the US though and its funny seeing the US replies already as in the UK we have this thing called privacy you see - I've yet to spot any discernable privacy in the US - everyone is like "yeah! just open up the guys mailbox and delete it". In the UK you could be looking at 2 years in prison for that!
Oh please.
With Maildirs I can just grep for the subject line and erase the file without seeing any other email. Now mbox is a different situation but I would imagine that something similar is available on win32.
Re:And I can't get up!!!
on
Lego Segway
·
· Score: 2
Until or unless it's articulated, this will always be true. Segway can't right itself from this position either...?
Can't you lock the axles so that when you engage the motors the rotors stop and the stator moves?
Um....welll...Where should I be storing data...? I'm a small shop, and I don't have some kind of mini computer sitting in the back.
Why on a fileserver in the back, one that does have at least IDE software RAID1 and a CDRW or tape backup that you take offsite.
That way you can use dirt cheap POS systems and workstations (well to the extent that work can still be done on them) and don't worry about flaky hardware. At least that's how I've set it up at a number of small (
My Point of Sale systems are incredibly important, and some crazy SCSI Raid 5 Server under the counter for a simple cash register is out of the question.
Your POS systems shouldn't be storing anything of any value on their hard drives. Hell they should have them anyway!
Either make your POS master and ghost it to every POS system out there so that when the drive blows you shrug and ghost another from the master, or boot from CF or something and don't use a hard drive.
Storing data on the POS computer? What are you, insane?
Search for "Sony TV tuner snowy picture", it is not quality you are paying for when buying Sony products.
People still use the tuners in the television? I thought with all the TIVO/DirecTV/digital cable folk we'd all have bypassed it and be using the composite, svideo or component video inputs in our televisions.
One time where I used to work, our supplier accidentally shipped us a whole box of them (About 20 drives). We decided to keep them and sell them for profit. About two months later (After we had built and sold about 10 machines with those drives), they quickly started to come back to the shop. So with the 10 we had left, we replaced them all.
I think that's called Karma. You ripped off your supplier, and actually took a hit on profit because of these drives.
Slashdot Mirror
I would use jabber, but there is a total lack of a good client for either unix or windows.
Not so. I thought the same thing until I tried out Psi.
After your inspiring speach about Jabber. You never really tell us exactly what it is, or provide a link for more info. A link wold be nice. We like links.
I'll try to help. Here is Jabber's main page. The first thing you need to do is Grab a client My personal favourite is Psi, a crossplatform slim and slick client that I feel is better because I can opt to have incoming events as messages or chats (or just leave them as they came), opt to pop up the window, automatically show the message, or just flash in the tray (especially important when you type over 100WPM and someone messages you out of the blue), it's open source, I've created a few patches to help make the client better (IMO), and it's under active development. Psi also has a message/chat history (searchable) and supports multiple identities (online at the same time, in the same client) and Jabber itself features multiple instances of a particular Jabber User (home/work, etc.). Features coming up in Psi are groupchat (in 0.8.7, due out Very Soon Now), File Transfer (that works behind NAT, coming in 0.9), pluggable storage for history and prefs (SQL, etc.) and other leading-edge stuff for Jabber. Justin (the lead developer of Psi) seems to have a real knack for making a solid, stable client and pushing the envelope with the new Jabber feature drafts.
Oh yes, Psi also supports SSL (client--server) and there is a Jabber draft for SSL between servers, so your inane chatter is kept private with strong encryption. *cough*ICQ*cough*
Psi is a Qt app, but there are CLI clients, Perl module clients, GTK clients, Win32-only clients, Java clients, JScript clients... Hell there's even a Flash client. The protocol is completely open.
Perhaps one of the biggest assets to Jabber is that it is decentralized. There are many public servers, and you can set your own up (hell even Debian has packages for it!). [warning - the public servers link has a session-id, I don't know if it'll work for anyone else]
The biggest problem with Jabber is that it is still a little tricky for newbies to get in to -- there is no "download this, it registers you with one of the common servers" links (not that I'm aware of anyway), so you need someone to either set it up for you or point you off to a public server. A lot of the clients are crap (a common problem with OSS, I'm afraid). Sometimes the transports (gateways to other IM systems, like ICQ, AIM, Y!, etc.) don't work because the other systems find a common server and shut down access to their network from it, but if you run your own server or you are on a small server, you won't even blip on their radar.
I really like it. I used to be an ICQ-head (my UIN is just over 1-mil) but when they started throwing up ads and adding more and more crap to the client I bailed) and I couldn't find a decent Jabber client (one that didn't pop up messages and take focus, how F#%#^T#$'ing irritating!) for a while, but now I am a very happy Jabber user. Hell even my wife, mom and grandmother use it (seriously) -- it works great for computer-cautious people because of the simplicity.
Do you seriously believe that even if every single member of the tech community, however loosely you choose to define that, started using Jabber or some other sort of open protocol system to chat with, that it would amount to a portion of the total IM user base large enough for AOL or some other company to even notice?
Of course not, don't be absurd. What he's trying to do is start a domino effect. If you start using Jabber and you get your Aunt Tilly to use it because she needs to talk to you to help her get her printer printing those cute cross-stitch patterns, that's one person. The she realizes there's no ads and the client is small and simple to use, she will tell her friends at all about it one afternoon during tea. And one of Aunt Tilly's friend's nephews happens to know a bit about these computer things and you know, she thinks he uses Jabber too... The effect is slow as hell but once it reaches a critical mass (which it may never do) it will cascade just like ICQ did (and MSN, and Y! and all the others).
This will especially be accelerated if you tell Aunt Tilly that she can talk on Jabber, MSN and Y! with one client. That is a little counter-productive but once her friends start using the Jabber clients there is a diminished need for the transports which helped bring her online with Jabber in the first place.
So no, I don't think he meant that the tech community on its own would cause the revolution. It'll definately be a distributed effort.
I do have first hand experience with non-trivial Perl projects though and I can say they are much more difficult to maintain. Everyone who writes Perl seems to have their own style which makes the code very difficult to follow. Even with very good coding guidlines there are just so many normal things you do in Perl that make the code hard to follow.
I too have first-hand experience with non-trivial Perl projects -- maintain control, hire disciplined people, and there is no problem. The same is true for practically any language.
Let's face it -- you need the discipline to write good software period -- why not use a language that you can pull out the stops with when its necessary?
And here's a few reasons why I'll never have a Python project in my office:
Furthermore, strong typing doesn't help you write better algorithms. Coming from a strong C background, I see no problems with typecasting away to different data types as I see fit. Of course, you have the opportunity to shoot yourself in the foot, but that's one of the risks you take when you carry a gun instead of a textbook. (I'm not ripping on Python's ability to do real work, as that is not the case.)
Honestly, I don't know what people think is such a great deal about strong typecasting. I use perl's strict mode, full warnings and taint as a default -- but then I code my Perl to a much higher standard than the script kiddies.
Of course, you could always use a real language that enforced coding discipline.
What, like Python, where my indentation is part of my structure? Take that and shove it up your ass, I decide how code shall look, not the language. Or rather, I will choose a language to code in that I am comfortable with, not the opposite.
Why do some programmers insist that its more important to be able to lash up buggy code in an eye blink than to write maintainable, bug free code in the first place? Is debugging and maintenance time somehow cheaper?
Why do some people think that strong typing, forced formatting and other insanities are any substitute for well-disciplined programmers? I'll gladly pay for a good programmer rather than try and figure out the algorithmic nightmares some people toss off, even in strongly-typed languages.
The Second Law of Themodynamics suggest that you will be proven wrong.
This isn't physics; it's programming. As a NSPHB (not so pointy-haired boss) I can eliminate people who do not have the discipline to code cleanly, irrespective of the language.
I agree, I just thought I'd point out that this doesn't change the fact that perl is HELL to maintain for larger projects :)
Bullshit, or at least bullshit that Perl makes it harder to maintain than any other language.
Code properly, document correctly and adhere to the same design rules for any other maintainable project (which includes firing the assholes who think that obfuscated perl has a place in a maintainable project) and you will have no more difficulty in maintaining a Perl project than you will any other.
The fact that perl lets you create a mess may be open to debate, but it certainly doesn't mean it will be a mess.
UGH
PHP-Nuke, PostNuke and all variants are an exceedingly AWFUL way to share info -- click here, click there, stupid avatars, no threading, no straightforward text interface, searching rarely works properly, themes, ads, smileys, animations and more crap than you can shake a stick at.
Give me newsgroups or a mailing list. But please no PHPNuke or derivatives.
PHP is like PERL made for the web, it has easier access to databases than any other language I know of
I disagree; Perl's DBI interface is *far* simpler (and the functions are not DB-specific) like PHP's. (I think PHP solved that in the not too distant past though)
Nevertheless, the distinction between "published" and "publicized" is an important one.
Agreed. Absolutely.
Yes, we know what you meant. All the same, please refrain from posting stuff to the Internet, and then complaining that it was being accessed even though it wasn't "published".
Yes, it was the wrong word to use. However the response was used only to be nit-picky, which is the reason for my response.
Wrong. You've had several of your published but unpublicized directories found. Once its on the webserver and capable of being served to the public, its published.
Semantic and/or pedantic arguments don't win any points with me. You knew what I meant: Google does indeed try to spider all documents on a website, whether they have linkage or not. I'm no more wrong than you are "smart" by nit-picking.
No, Googlebot needs a link.
No, it doesn't.
Google plays tricks with servers. With apache, for instance it tries the venerable www.site.com/?M=A and ?S=D, ?N=A etc. tricks. If Apache isn't locked down, it'll happily bypass index.html and give you directory listings, and then spider any subdirectories using the same method. I had several of my unpublished directories found by google this way.
kdepim has a filter you can attach to kmail so it captures iCal/vCal attachments. I thought that this would be a great plan until I tried it.
Outlook 2000 running against Exchange Server 5.5 doesn't send iCal/vCal requests -- all it does is send this:
When: Friday, October 13, 2001
Place: Conference Room\nDuration: 2 hours
~~~[stupid lameness filter]~~~
This is a test meeting
wtf good is that?! I really want to use something that'll imitate that. Greaaaaat.
But is the quality of the $40 one made "just outside Hong Kong" the same as the $100 made in the USA?
Having worked with several US and Taiwanese manufacturers, I would say it's a toss-up. Some US manufacturers are far more expensive and the quality is so poor you'd think it were assembled by chimps.
I used to work for a company that did solutions like that. What we normally did was use ISA Micom cards (FXS). Micom are now owned by Nortel, and last I checked there were thousands of these cards still available through distributers.
Long shot here, but I'd like to talk to you more about this. Can you email me?
Another related note: My wife paralegaled (that's "legal assistant" to you!) for a mostly blind guy with photographic memory.
what, did someone xray his film or something?
I agree it can get silly, however the law is the law. Sure you can grep etc. and find a mail, however firstly, what if you make a typo and forget to pipe and output all the guys mail to the screen, and secondly, what if they are using Outlook?
Are there no clauses for accidental exposure in the UK? Seems awfully strict to me.
If you have ever conducted a restore over many tapes (remember 6525 tapes?) you know that if tape 3 out of 5 is bad your screwed.
That's why I use afio instead of tar. bad tapes just affect the files in the bad parts of the tape since each file is compressed individually instead of as one like tar.
It's not ethical because for starters it might breach the Human Rights Act - not sure if this applies in the US though and its funny seeing the US replies already as in the UK we have this thing called privacy you see - I've yet to spot any discernable privacy in the US - everyone is like "yeah! just open up the guys mailbox and delete it". In the UK you could be looking at 2 years in prison for that!
Oh please.
With Maildirs I can just grep for the subject line and erase the file without seeing any other email. Now mbox is a different situation but I would imagine that something similar is available on win32.
Until or unless it's articulated, this will always be true. Segway can't right itself from this position either...?
Can't you lock the axles so that when you engage the motors the rotors stop and the stator moves?
Um....welll...Where should I be storing data...? I'm a small shop, and I don't have some kind of mini computer sitting in the back.
Why on a fileserver in the back, one that does have at least IDE software RAID1 and a CDRW or tape backup that you take offsite.
That way you can use dirt cheap POS systems and workstations (well to the extent that work can still be done on them) and don't worry about flaky hardware. At least that's how I've set it up at a number of small (
My Point of Sale systems are incredibly important, and some crazy SCSI Raid 5 Server under the counter for a simple cash register is out of the question.
Your POS systems shouldn't be storing anything of any value on their hard drives. Hell they should have them anyway!
Either make your POS master and ghost it to every POS system out there so that when the drive blows you shrug and ghost another from the master, or boot from CF or something and don't use a hard drive.
Storing data on the POS computer? What are you, insane?
Search for "Sony TV tuner snowy picture", it is not quality you are paying for when buying Sony products.
People still use the tuners in the television? I thought with all the TIVO/DirecTV/digital cable folk we'd all have bypassed it and be using the composite, svideo or component video inputs in our televisions.
One time where I used to work, our supplier accidentally shipped us a whole box of them (About 20 drives). We decided to keep them and sell them for profit. About two months later (After we had built and sold about 10 machines with those drives), they quickly started to come back to the shop. So with the 10 we had left, we replaced them all.
I think that's called Karma. You ripped off your supplier, and actually took a hit on profit because of these drives.