Because ease of implementation...

Post #364,783 by malraux 9/30/12 7:20:55 PM 9/30/12 7:23:44 PM Reply	Because ease of implementation... ... is orthogonal to sufficiency of both time and motivation. In other words, I don't give enough of a shit to take the time. More technically: the old code that did all of the fancy formatting and such was Zope and Python. This code base is Java, and thus a complete rewrite. Not everything made the translation before I stopped being arsed enough. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson. Edited by malraux Sept. 30, 2012, 07:23:44 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #364,784 by rcareaga 9/30/12 7:52:34 PM Reply	don't get me wrong: I'm grateful. Deeply grateful. I merely don't understand why the a-href technology that appeared to be part of the furniture ten years ago is now regarded as something like going back to the moon, even though it remains a commonplace convention elsewhere on the internets. I have no technical competence to weigh in on the issues here. I ask only why, in layman's terms, what we took for granted in 2002 is not feasible in 2012. Explain that and I will not raise my paw again. cordially,
Post #364,787 by malraux 9/30/12 8:02:57 PM Reply	I already explained it, but in plainer terms: I. Cannot. Be. Arsed. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #364,793 by rcareaga 9/30/12 8:30:35 PM Reply	Then I accept ...that the technical impedimenta as previously set forth soar over my understanding, and will not enquire again. Too bad about the lost functionality, though, and too bad that you boffins can no longer summon up your former powers. cordially,
Post #364,795 by Another Scott 9/30/12 8:44:22 PM Reply	Non-expert's summary: My recollection of the story: Zope was the framework that the old version of the software was built-on. It enabled a lot of functionality reasonably quickly and easily. Zope is written in Python and can be extended by Python. But Zope changed over the years and became fragile with respect to upgrades. So it became too painful to upgrade the IWT software as too much stuff broke during version upgrades. Then there were some hardware issues and it became difficult/impossible to restore the old software. So Scott and Mike rewrote the basic functionality in Java. There was no comparable framework that could be put underneath the custom code easily, so we lost things like embedded links and images and WeeCodes and so forth. It's not "hard" to add the functionality if one is starting from scratch, in principle, but having it work with the history we have here (that used a different database interface, etc.) wouldn't be trivial (I don't think). All of us only have so many hours in the day, and we won't get those hours back. :-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #364,797 by malraux 9/30/12 8:46:36 PM Reply	It's not difficult at all. But it would involve several hours of coding and testing, more than I'm willing to invest at this point. I already blew my budget for this year on writing the import scripts to merge the new and old databases, for that matter. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #364,798 by Another Scott 9/30/12 8:48:03 PM Reply	It's very much appreciated. Thank you. :-)
Post #364,800 by folkert 9/30/12 8:50:16 PM 9/30/12 8:51:08 PM Reply	What budget? And could we raise enough for you and/or Mike to finish it... PAID? For that matter, I'd support/pay a couple of hours myself. Edited by folkert Sept. 30, 2012, 08:51:08 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #364,805 by malraux 9/30/12 9:38:25 PM Reply	Here's the thing: As soon as I start accepting money for working on it, I become beholden to the people paying the money. Right now I can just say, meh, screw it, I've got better things to do. Or if I want to work on it some, I can pick what to work on, and how to do it. Not that I couldn't use the income right now. I'm just not ready to go that far for it. ;-) Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #364,807 by folkert 9/30/12 10:12:02 PM Reply	Re: Here's the thing: On the verge of sounding dumb... How is it me saying here take this money and make it work better, you being beholden to me. I won't make payment requiring certain milestones. I'm not managing the project. I just saying... here, take my effing money and make this work better. Even if you improve the thing in imperceptible ways (and YES, I'm a 100% kind of job of that type)... its still worth the friggin money to me. You gotta remember, I'm all about working better... perhaps not functionality improvements, but work-ability means more to me than most.
Post #364,814 by mvitale 10/1/12 12:03:45 AM Reply	Re: Here's the thing: I believe that, over the past N number of years, Scott and I have shown an AMAZING unwillingness to take anyone's money for this site. At this point, it's a pet project; a side project. We both have other things that take up far more of our time, and I honestly don't think that either of us -- individually or together -- are willing, ready, or able to sink more time into the code for the foreseeable future. It's not the world's greatest piece of forum software. But by and large, it works. And that's good enough. -Mike @MikeVitale42 "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
Post #364,815 by folkert 10/1/12 12:07:53 AM Reply	That is it. I ain't gots no problem with it. Just making sure it wasn't anything else, as if it WAS a money thing... I'd make sure we could deal with it. -- greg@gregfolkert.net PGP key 1024D/B524687C 2003-08-05 Fingerprint: E1D3 E3D7 5850 957E FED0 2B3A ED66 6971 B524 687C
Post #364,817 by static 10/1/12 1:51:58 AM Reply	Were you ever going to put the source code up? It is a rather unique piece of software, after all. I'd like to install it locally and see what I could do with it. (Probably sometime around 2015 when I find some copious free time.) Wade. Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/
Post #364,839 by malraux 10/1/12 10:53:12 AM Reply	One main problem: Passwords. We need to scrub it first to make sure there isn't something tucked away. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #364,846 by pwhysall 10/1/12 12:09:56 PM Reply	Yeah yeah Admit it, you've lost it. And the source code. ba-dum tish Try the veal.
Post #364,847 by folkert 10/1/12 12:12:11 PM Reply	... You here all week? -- greg@gregfolkert.net PGP key 1024D/B524687C 2003-08-05 Fingerprint: E1D3 E3D7 5850 957E FED0 2B3A ED66 6971 B524 687C
Post #364,856 by malraux 10/1/12 1:39:36 PM Reply	ponders translating all of pwhysall's posts into boxlish... Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.*
Post #364,857 by drook 10/1/12 1:48:13 PM Reply	Rhyming slang filter? -- Drew
Post #364,858 by malraux 10/1/12 1:57:59 PM Reply	There's an idea... But I'll have to make it read the posts aloud so Peter can be fully subjected to a Dick Van Dyke accent. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #364,866 by static 10/1/12 4:56:52 PM Reply	Oh dear oh dear... that old chestnut... Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/

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