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http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html
The first of the usenet servers is closing down. :-(
John (raising a glass to Truscott and Ellis)
--
Cogito sum,|| wbu### [at] tznvy pbz (rot'ed) || GPG Key Fingerprint:
ergo sum, || These opinions are mine alone, || 0D9BCF4CF1B71CA2F5F7
cogito || others can find their own || BFBBCBC34EDEAEFCE453
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Doctor John <rea### [at] mysig> wrote:
> http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html
> The first of the usenet servers is closing down. :-(
Usenet is dying a slow death, as more and more usenet servers are being
terminated.
--
- Warp
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On Wed, 19 May 2010 07:59:39 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Doctor John <rea### [at] mysig> wrote:
>> http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html
>
>> The first of the usenet servers is closing down. :-(
>
> Usenet is dying a slow death, as more and more usenet servers are
> being
> terminated.
There was an announcement a few days ago that Microsoft was also shutting
their newsgroups down (though I read somewhere that it was only a "sort
of" shutdown, not really a full shutdown).
Jim
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does anyone remember gopher? :P
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> There was an announcement a few days ago that Microsoft was also shutting
> their newsgroups down (though I read somewhere that it was only a "sort
> of" shutdown, not really a full shutdown).
Yeah, it's all "help yourself" web services nowadays. Even their online
documentation has the "community input" sections at the bottom like the PHP
documentation had for a long time.
What's the point of buying proprietary software if you have to document it
yourself, or experiment with it to figure out how it works even in normal
cases? Sheesh.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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On Wed, 19 May 2010 13:49:54 -0300, nemesis wrote:
> does anyone remember gopher? :P
I remember hearing about it, but never actually used it.
Jim
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On Wed, 19 May 2010 09:54:57 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> There was an announcement a few days ago that Microsoft was also
>> shutting their newsgroups down (though I read somewhere that it was
>> only a "sort of" shutdown, not really a full shutdown).
>
> Yeah, it's all "help yourself" web services nowadays. Even their online
> documentation has the "community input" sections at the bottom like the
> PHP documentation had for a long time.
Yeah, that's a trend that's been around for a while, but I can't say I've
ever seen it used effectively. It seems that companies think "if we put
a place for people to comment/write/wiki/whatever they'll just
participate" - and that's generally not the case.
> What's the point of buying proprietary software if you have to document
> it yourself, or experiment with it to figure out how it works even in
> normal cases? Sheesh.
That's a pet peeve of mine today (just software documentation in general
not being very high quality - I remember telling someone about a doc page
that described a product UI by pointing out things like "the username
field is where you enter your username" and "the login button is what you
press to login".
Duh, smack me with a 25-story building, I never woulda' guessed that. >:-(
Jim
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On 19/05/2010 6:54 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 19 May 2010 13:49:54 -0300, nemesis wrote:
>
>> does anyone remember gopher? :P
>
> I remember hearing about it, but never actually used it.
>
Much more importantly is reason for a wake. ;-)
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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nemesis wrote:
> does anyone remember gopher? :P
Unfortunately yes...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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nemesis wrote:
> does anyone remember gopher? :P
I used that *and* archie.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Yeah, that's a trend that's been around for a while, but I can't say I've
> ever seen it used effectively.
The PHP docs are pretty good at it. But that's because the docs themselves
really tend to answer your questions. They tend to have a decription, what
the parameters mean, sample code, etc. They don't just say "The flooble(zop)
function floobles the provided zop."
The commentary generally had either significant clarifications or sample
code for how to combine different features to get what you want, etc.
>> What's the point of buying proprietary software if you have to document
>> it yourself, or experiment with it to figure out how it works even in
>> normal cases? Sheesh.
>
> That's a pet peeve of mine today (just software documentation in general
> not being very high quality - I remember telling someone about a doc page
> that described a product UI by pointing out things like "the username
> field is where you enter your username" and "the login button is what you
> press to login".
"To insert a column, use the Insert Column menu. But if you needed me to
tell you this, return the software to the store."
"How do you like my documentation so far?"
"I'm only up to the chapter entitled "Duh!""
> Duh, smack me with a 25-story building, I never woulda' guessed that. >:-(
Some of the Microsoft API libraries are starting to have rather sparse
documentation. They have things like "Components.Add(aComponent) adds the
component to the components list." They don't mention "Oh, and by the way,
if the enclosing object has already been initialized, then this will invoke
Initialize() on your component automatically. If the enclosing object hasn't
been initialized, this will invoke Initialize() after the enclosing object
invokes Initialize() but before that invokation returns."
You don't want to initialize things twice, but you also don't get told
if/where it is the system does it for you.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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> Some of the Microsoft API libraries are starting to have rather sparse
> documentation. They have things like "Components.Add(aComponent) adds the
> component to the components list." They don't mention "Oh, and by the
> way, if the enclosing object has already been initialized, then this will
> invoke Initialize() on your component automatically. If the enclosing
> object hasn't been initialized, this will invoke Initialize() after the
> enclosing object invokes Initialize() but before that invokation returns."
>
> You don't want to initialize things twice, but you also don't get told
> if/where it is the system does it for you.
Back when I was doing C++/DirectX stuff I remember things like this. The
documentation didn't mention whether objects were getting released by
functions or not. If you used one object to create another, could you then
release the first object? Or when you finally released the second one, did
it release the first one for you?
In the end trial and error using the debug libraries sorted out most leaks.
It had a cool feature where each object was given a number and then when
your program exited it gave a list of numbers that weren't released. You
could then set the debug library to break when an object with that number
was created - it was then obvious (most of the time) what you had
forgotten/not realised to release.
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> It seems that companies think "if we put
> a place for people to comment/write/wiki/whatever they'll just
> participate" - and that's generally not the case.
It's not just companies. I lose track of how many Haskell libraries have
"documentation" consisting only of a list of function names and their
type signatures. And when you say "why is there no documentation?" the
answer you get is "patches welcome".
In other words, "if you want to write my documentation for me, I'd be
happy to include it in the next release". I guess distributed version
control makes people lazy.
> That's a pet peeve of mine today - just software documentation in general
> not being very high quality.
If it was only the *documentation* things wouldn't be so bad...
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Stephen wrote:
>
> Much more importantly is reason for a wake. ;-)
>
Now why did I think you were going to say that? :-)
We must start thinking about the next PovCon
John
--
Cogito sum,|| wbu### [at] tznvypbz (rot'ed) || GPG Key Fingerprint:
ergo sum, || These opinions are mine alone, || 0D9BCF4CF1B71CA2F5F7
cogito || others can find their own || BFBBCBC34EDEAEFCE453
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On 20/05/2010 10:34 AM, Doctor John wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
>>
>> Much more importantly is reason for a wake. ;-)
>>
> Now why did I think you were going to say that? :-)
> We must start thinking about the next PovCon
>
But I have been thinking about it. ;-)
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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> does anyone remember gopher? :P
Yes. I used it but once. Ages past.
I was looking for some information on kermit ;-) (the file-transfer-program,
not the frog)
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On Wed, 19 May 2010 12:53:05 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Yeah, that's a trend that's been around for a while, but I can't say
>> I've ever seen it used effectively.
>
> The PHP docs are pretty good at it. But that's because the docs
> themselves really tend to answer your questions. They tend to have a
> decription, what the parameters mean, sample code, etc. They don't just
> say "The flooble(zop) function floobles the provided zop."
>
> The commentary generally had either significant clarifications or sample
> code for how to combine different features to get what you want, etc.
That's a good point, I've actually used the PHP docs and hadn't thought
about it.
>>> What's the point of buying proprietary software if you have to
>>> document it yourself, or experiment with it to figure out how it works
>>> even in normal cases? Sheesh.
>>
>> That's a pet peeve of mine today (just software documentation in
>> general not being very high quality - I remember telling someone about
>> a doc page that described a product UI by pointing out things like "the
>> username field is where you enter your username" and "the login button
>> is what you press to login".
>
> "To insert a column, use the Insert Column menu. But if you needed me to
> tell you this, return the software to the store."
>
> "How do you like my documentation so far?" "I'm only up to the chapter
> entitled "Duh!""
Yeah, that's the sort of thing I've gotten used to seeing. It's sad...
>> Duh, smack me with a 25-story building, I never woulda' guessed that.
>> >:-(
>
> Some of the Microsoft API libraries are starting to have rather sparse
> documentation. They have things like "Components.Add(aComponent) adds
> the component to the components list." They don't mention "Oh, and by
> the way, if the enclosing object has already been initialized, then this
> will invoke Initialize() on your component automatically. If the
> enclosing object hasn't been initialized, this will invoke Initialize()
> after the enclosing object invokes Initialize() but before that
> invokation returns."
>
> You don't want to initialize things twice, but you also don't get told
> if/where it is the system does it for you.
That's useful. (not)
Jim
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On Thu, 20 May 2010 09:26:08 +0100, Invisible wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>> It seems that companies think "if we put a place for people to
>> comment/write/wiki/whatever they'll just participate" - and that's
>> generally not the case.
>
> It's not just companies. I lose track of how many Haskell libraries have
> "documentation" consisting only of a list of function names and their
> type signatures. And when you say "why is there no documentation?" the
> answer you get is "patches welcome".
>
> In other words, "if you want to write my documentation for me, I'd be
> happy to include it in the next release". I guess distributed version
> control makes people lazy.
Well, in the OSS world, there tends to be a focus on code rather than on
documenting it. There are some areas in both OSS and commercial software
where documentation is pretty good - it's just rare.
>> That's a pet peeve of mine today - just software documentation in
>> general not being very high quality.
>
> If it was only the *documentation* things wouldn't be so bad...
Documentation is relatively easy to do; software is far more complex.
Most people expect bugs in software because of the complexity; but most
people expect documentation that's useful.
Jim
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scott wrote:
>> You don't want to initialize things twice, but you also don't get told
>> if/where it is the system does it for you.
And it turns out that if you add the component before you initialize the
game, then the component manager thing initializes all those added
components. If you add the component after you initialize the game, the
component gets initialized as you add it. *But* if you add the component in
the game's Initialize() function, the component never gets initialized. It
does, however, get deinitialized, so I'm pretty sure that's a bug and not
just something I'm doing wrong.
> Back when I was doing C++/DirectX stuff I remember things like this.
> The documentation didn't mention whether objects were getting released
> by functions or not. If you used one object to create another, could
> you then release the first object? Or when you finally released the
> second one, did it release the first one for you?
And that is the joy of GC. That's exactly the kind of example I use to
explain why Alan Kay says that GC is required for an OO system. Otherwise
you have to know the internals of the classes, and in particular whether
they copy or reference the instances you pass to them.
> In the end trial and error using the debug libraries sorted out most
> leaks. It had a cool feature where each object was given a number and
> then when your program exited it gave a list of numbers that weren't
> released. You could then set the debug library to break when an object
> with that number was created - it was then obvious (most of the time)
> what you had forgotten/not realised to release.
Yeah, stuff like that is cool. It can work OK when you have good tools.
When your destination platform is too small to hold a debugger, you can be
rather screwed.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Well, in the OSS world, there tends to be a focus on code rather than on
> documenting it.
Unfortunately, most people don't seem to realize that a *library* with no
documentation is worse than useless.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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On Thu, 20 May 2010 09:06:27 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Well, in the OSS world, there tends to be a focus on code rather than
>> on documenting it.
>
> Unfortunately, most people don't seem to realize that a *library* with
> no documentation is worse than useless.
Yeah, that's very *very* true.
Jim
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>> Unfortunately, most people don't seem to realize that a *library* with
>> no documentation is worse than useless.
>
> Yeah, that's very *very* true.
It could be worse; it could have *incorrect* documentation. (!!)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Unfortunately, most people don't seem to realize that a *library* with
>>> no documentation is worse than useless.
>>
>> Yeah, that's very *very* true.
>
> It could be worse; it could have *incorrect* documentation. (!!)
Not really. Usually there's two kinds of incorrect documentation:
1) Documentation that has bugs in it, which is no worse than a library that
has bugs in it.
2) Documentation for the wrong product shipped. Which is pretty much
equivalent to "no documentation" when you discover that's what happened.
Annoying to spend a couple of days trying to figure out how to get something
to work as documented, finally ask on the newsgroups, and be told "We never
documented that. We just shipped the 1.x docs with the 2.x product." Woulda
been nice to know!
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Darren New escreveu:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Well, in the OSS world, there tends to be a focus on code rather than
>> on documenting it.
>
> Unfortunately, most people don't seem to realize that a *library* with
> no documentation is worse than useless.
Good libraries should be intuitive and self-evident enough. Bad
libraries shouldn't be used anyway.
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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>>>> Unfortunately, most people don't seem to realize that a *library* with
>>>> no documentation is worse than useless.
>>>
>>> Yeah, that's very *very* true.
>>
>> It could be worse; it could have *incorrect* documentation. (!!)
>
> Not really. Usually there's two kinds of incorrect documentation:
>
> 1) Documentation that has bugs in it, which is no worse than a library
> that has bugs in it.
>
> 2) Documentation for the wrong product shipped. Which is pretty much
> equivalent to "no documentation" when you discover that's what happened.
> Annoying to spend a couple of days trying to figure out how to get
> something to work as documented, finally ask on the newsgroups, and be
> told "We never documented that. We just shipped the 1.x docs with the
> 2.x product." Woulda been nice to know!
So you've never come across documentation that says "setting this value
negative uses the smallest supported value", when in fact setting it
negative causes a segfault?
Then again, would that be a documentation bug or a library bug? I guess
the choice is arbitrary...
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Stephen wrote:
>
> But I have been thinking about it. ;-)
>
So what are you doing in June? The weather's turning better so we will be
able to smoke outside without the risk of freezing our brass monkeys :-)
John
--
Cogito sum,|| wbu### [at] tznvypbz (rot'ed) || GPG Key Fingerprint:
ergo sum, || These opinions are mine alone, || 0D9BCF4CF1B71CA2F5F7
cogito || others can find their own || BFBBCBC34EDEAEFCE453
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On 21/05/2010 10:30 AM, Doctor John wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
>>
>> But I have been thinking about it. ;-)
>>
> So what are you doing in June? The weather's turning better so we will be
> able to smoke outside without the risk of freezing our brass monkeys :-)
>
The rumour is that I’ll be Oop North until November. But I’ll arrange to
work from home one or two Fridays.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:54:24 +0100, Invisible wrote:
> So you've never come across documentation that says "setting this value
> negative uses the smallest supported value", when in fact setting it
> negative causes a segfault?
>
> Then again, would that be a documentation bug or a library bug? I guess
> the choice is arbitrary...
That would be a library bug, because the exception handling is broken or
nonexistent.
Jim
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Invisible wrote:
> So you've never come across documentation that says "setting this value
> negative uses the smallest supported value", when in fact setting it
> negative causes a segfault?
Sure. That's a bug in the library or documentation. A fact of life.
It's when they say "Pass the name of the video file to play to
PlayVideoFile() and it'll play." And you spend an hour looking for where
that header is defined, then go googling, and find out "Oh, that's for a
different version. This version doesn't play video files at all."
Or like the P2P protocol stack in Apache.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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>> Unfortunately, most people don't seem to realize that a *library* with
>> no documentation is worse than useless.
>
> Good libraries should be intuitive and self-evident enough. Bad
> libraries shouldn't be used anyway.
Nice in theory, not always possible in practise. Sometimes it's
unavoidable that when a library offers a lot of functionallity, it's not
obvious how to start using it - even if it *is* easy to use once you
know how.
This is why documentation is necessary.
(Also, I don't care how intuitive a library is, there are usually
edge-cases where it's not obvious what the library will do. Usually you
need to know about these.)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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