Slashcode v1.0 Released 136
Patrick and Chris have been working their kung fu overtime for some
time now to clean up Slashcode and release a version one point oh.
Its available on Slashcode: if you're interested in setting up your own slashdotesque weblog and are up on mod_perl and apache, you'll enjoy it. With 1.0 out, its time to once again start hammering on new features including wireless device support. I hacked in quickie WAP device support, so if your phone handles it, give it a whirl. Avantgo will be coming soon as well, along with many design improvements that will drastically improve performance (thank god!) and simplify administration, and allow usage on a variety of SQL servers.
Re:Speaking of Avantgo (Score:1)
http://www.tomw.org/malsync.html
What about mod_jonkatz? (Score:1)
I mean, there's no way a *human* could write such nonsense. It must be another example of Taco's coding skillz.
Re:Phantom Slashdot (Score:1)
Just because we haven't gotten around to putting a pretty face on it doesn't mean it's a bug yet. Spawning a new sid on the fly is pretty handy for testing comment posting as well.
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Info on coding for wireless (Score:1)
to a web site that I maintain, but I haven't
been able to find very much documentation on
how to go about doing it. Does anybody have
any pointers to docs or HOWTOs or anything?
Thanks in advance,
Pez
Decidedly No... (Score:1)
Re:Easy method to get a slashdot type thing workin (Score:1)
Re:Good Job! (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot/win32: Doubt it! (Score:1)
Mod_perl (or at least ActiveState's reimplimentation) is available for Win32.
Although maybe you knew that already.
Re:Here's my vapid, self-serving comment (Score:1)
The reason I know the exact date is that I have the original "Here is your password" email.
Talk about exponential growth.
ObSlashhot: I would like to see when I and other people signed up. Yet another field to add in the user database. Also, in the Moderation hidden discussion, we were talking about meta-moderation getting screwed up (some people not being able to meta-moderate). Has this been fixed?
Re:Kung Fu (Score:1)
"I'd like to try your IE 5 style, lets begin then!"
*HAWWP* *AAAKP* *HYAHP* *DYAAHP*
Your *DYAAHP* has performed an illegal operation. It is recommended that you restart your stylee.
"Darn you *Lip movement* This is not over!! I will train in the arts of Ween Tew Kay *ha ha ha hahaha ha ha ha*. I will avenge my crashing by representing Microsloth with more abnormal extensions!!!" *POOF*
"Once again, the Nets of Scapage clan wins again, but Gill Bates will be back...I will be ready."
"Electric Relaxation" - ATCQ
- Bwana
Re:Not the way to lock! (Score:1)
Re:Randal Schwartz Up To His Old Tricks Again (Score:1)
Re:Will someone PLEASE fix "Extrans" posting metho (Score:1)
bug in poll comments (Score:1)
rpm's anywhere? (Score:1)
WAP!!! (Score:1)
Re:DDoS (Score:1)
I also think that in the past couple of months some people who just think and see things differently have started moderating and meta-moderating. My personal suspicion is that they are either under or over medicated. :-)
Re:Not the way to lock! (Score:1)
Here's my vapid, self-serving comment (Score:1)
Re:Phantom Slashdot (Score:1)
sid=Slashdot Marketing is hilarious (with a few exceptions). Hot Grits and Natalie Portman are lame 'cause those trolls can't stand posting where it won't annoy anybody. they're all out spamming other threads.
Re:Bulding a better Slashdot (Score:1)
Re:question (Score:1)
Re:Here's my vapid, self-serving comment (Score:1)
Speaking of Avantgo (Score:1)
Re:DDoS (Score:1)
But since I dropped below 25, I've been asked to moderate twice and not lost any more karma. So I'm scoobied.
Hamish
Code this in... (Score:1)
Re:DDoS (Score:1)
Okay, that explains a lot. Although I personally am not worried -- I've got a superhigh Karma total -- this does need to be addressed.
I am certainly going to MM daily now, however; perhaps I'll save a few people from the trolls.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Re:Speaking of Avantgo (Score:1)
http://www.perilith.com/slashdot/avantgo/index.
Hopefully when the official version comes on line the URL won't be hidden so that those of us that want to use something a little less memory intensive (iSilo for example) can get to the content. Just need iSilo to support colour.
Neil.
Re:Speaking of Avantgo (Score:1)
Re:It's funny how you can get the code.... (Score:1)
While I enjoy reading Slashdot and believe that it is a highly-informative and intelligent (well, usually) source of news and information, I don't believe that it is fair to declare all other sites based on the weblog concept as "Slashdot wannabes".
Each and every time I post a new story to cizone.com, I make it a point to avoid reporting on the exact same stories as Slashdot and other major news sources. When this cannot be avoided due to the significance of the story, I at least try to throw some type of twist into the article that sets it aside from the others. The greatest strength of any weblog is not only its ability to provide news stories, but also its commentary and other forms of editorial opinion to create a "community" atmosphere.
Yes, I am currently the only full-time poster at cizone.com, but does that really matter? How would the site be any better for you, as a reader, if it were maintained by ten people who posted an equal amount of information as one person?
Re:Phantom Slashdot (Score:1)
Re:Here's my vapid, self-serving comment (Score:1)
#16075
Thanks for the idea. I'd been wondering myself, and I have my original password e-mail too.
Hanzie
Re:Slashdot/win32: Doubt it! Bullshit (Score:1)
Re:Will someone PLEASE fix "Extrans" posting metho (Score:1)
I just now noticed. What was extrans is now plain old text, and what was plain old text is now extrans. They switched them. Wish they'd notified everyone of the changed behavior. Oh well..
bold
italic
Anyway, I used plain old text for this message..
---
Re:Will someone PLEASE fix "Extrans" posting metho (Score:1)
Look, it's extremely easy to type a message this way, and still include bold or other formatting stuff, without having to think about all the crap HTML requires.
Also, if this is wrong for plain old text, what is the difference between plain old text and extrans?
---
Re:Will someone PLEASE fix "Extrans" posting metho (Score:1)
Well, in that case then, what is the difference between "Extrans" and "Plain Old Text"? They'd both do the same exact thing.
---
Will someone PLEASE fix "Extrans" posting method?! (Score:1)
<i>italic</i>
<b>bold</b>
Why didn't that work? Extrans (html tags to text) has been broken for months now.. This is SO annoying for posting a reply!
Sorry. Had to vent a bit.
---
Meta-mod being hacked (Score:1)
Every time recently I tried to moderate, I've been screwed, in that my Karma drops a day or two later.. This time-lag effect points to meta-mod being abused.
What's occuring: Notice that the meta moderation page consists mainly of well moderated stuff. I usually put "good" on 9 out of the 10 that appear. So, if someone has a bunch of accounts, they can just mark everything as bad from all those accounts. This could be automated quite easily via scripts or some such. This is probably what's happening. Metamoderating does NOT affect the metamoderators Karma, so you can create an account, metamoderate it, and never, ever go negative karma.
Fixes:
I don't think AC's can meta-moderate, but if they can, they shouldn't be able to.
Karma limits should be around +10 to meta moderate or moderate. Possibly higher. They should at LEAST be +5.
This eliminates those jerks with a bunch of throwaway accounts that never post anything, and therefore can't get Karma.
A good look at server logs would easily tell if someone is going psycho on the meta-moderation. Probably you could just check by IP.
---
Re:Wireless support (Score:1)
Re:rpm's anywhere? (Score:1)
All sites have to start somewhere... (Score:1)
But I like the site, I get some decent info, and I help them out by posting comments and checking out their banner advertisers. Maybe more people will like the site, and it could become another great place like Slashdot.
When slashdot started, I betcha Rob was the only dude posting to 12 readers...
Re:Good Job! (Score:1)
Re:Info on coding for wireless (Score:1)
http://www.wapdevelopers.org
Re:Phantom Slashdot (Score:1)
Considering I coded that on purpose, I doubt we'll remove it from a future release.
I'm so happy to hear that. Although I have yet to get it working on my site, I chose to go with slashcode in the end because of this feature.
My site has a need for dozens to hundreds of rooms that are self-cleaning, non-archiving and not connected to stories. I'm going to enjoy putting that all together.
Now, if I could just get it set up...
paperbacks.homepage.com [homepage.com]
Wow, things just keep getting better and better (Score:1)
In case you missed it, that was humor.
--
Re:DDoS (Score:1)
I'm no karma whore, I mainly lurk. I've probably posted six times in the last two years. But still, losing Karma for putting in the time to moderate is annoying.
-Red
Re:so -- what's this mean? (Score:1)
There's a growing number of sites using slashcode (mine was using
As for your concern about 1.0s and messy code floating around. Yup, there's lots of messy code out there. If you don't like it, help out or don't use it. You don't have to rewrite it, but if you can recognize 'messy code', you should be able to help out in one way or another. It's only free beer if somebody makes it first.
As much respectas I have for RMS and ESR, I don't think that a smackdown from them would be good for things, and a point of having open source is to *NOT* keep it to yourself until it is "cleaned up and ready" - it's easier to get it ready if you have more help. That's why it works.
Open Source implementation varies from person to person, project to project... you can't place the blame on any person for anyone else's shortcomings.
Re:How to submit patches? (Score:1)
Slashdot Palm VII web clipping app (Score:2)
http://www.rgctech.com/slashdot [rgctech.com]
I run it on my Palm VII and it works great. You can first pull in the 5 most recent headings (about 500 bytes it tells you). Then you can click on a heading to get the full text (about 800 bytes it tells you). It's read only, but you do get your news!
Later.
mattj@invisik.com
My Problem with Squishdot (Score:2)
One other thing to look at is the PHP Slashdot clone, PHPSlash at http://phpslash.org/ I haven't really evaluated this yet, but it looks promising.
Re:Slashdot/win32: Doubt it! Bullshit (Score:2)
Don't confuse bigotry of comment posters with the bigotry of those of us who run the show. We have a whole different set of bigotry ;)
Re:Not the way to lock! (Score:2)
And even though it's way old and needs to be rewritten, it's never been an issue with locking. But how would I know, I only try to keep things running...
--
point oh release? (Score:2)
-----
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
Re:Slashdot/win32: Doubt it! Bullshit (Score:2)
Um, no. Objects are a tool that can be used for lots of things, and one of those things is ease in scalability, and one of the applications of objects can be ease in portability, I suppose. But there are many other ways to do the same thing. There is no direct link between scalability and objects, or portability and objects.
Re:Bulding a better Slashdot (Score:2)
Re:Will someone PLEASE fix "Extrans" posting metho (Score:2)
PRE is disallowed because it is too easy for people to totally screw up a page's formatting. Sorry.
Re:NNTP? (Score:2)
Re:I object to your unobjectiveness regarding obje (Score:2)
He said, "You mean, like objectify the whole lot, so it's truly scalable and portable?" That means two things:
Expressed: That by using objects, something is truly scalable and portable. This is bullshit.
Implied: That in order to be truly scalable and portable, you must use objects. This, too, is bullshit.
I am not biased against objects. Most of my more widely used projects have OO interfaces. I am biased against useless use of objects (see the original File::Spec interface), and I am biased against saying that the only way to achieve scalability/portability/whatever is with objects.
Re:Decidedly No... (Score:2)
Re:Will someone PLEASE fix "Extrans" posting metho (Score:2)
Re:Randal Schwartz Up To His Old Tricks Again (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot/win32: Doubt it! Bullshit (Score:2)
Re:Not the way to lock! (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot Palm VII web clipping app (Score:2)
Re:Database Independant Backend... (Score:2)
--Chris
Jesux Lives (Score:2)
Re:Bulding a better Slashdot (Score:2)
Maybe you saw that I wrote that I don't want advocacy for alternatives to Slash posted on the Slashcode site, but that had nothing to do with Slashdot or with the code itself. That was just because Slashcode is a site about developing and helping with Slash, not about advocacy or general discussion.
Re:point oh release? (Score:2)
Re:How to submit patches? (Score:2)
how about the +4 comments? (Score:2)
--
Re:Slashdot/win32: Doubt it! Bullshit (Score:2)
Or, is it all a conspiracy to move over to ASP/SQL and rebrand to either
http://slashdot.microsoft.com or
http://slashdot.linux.com?
#8^p
Re:DDoS (Score:2)
Hey, Taco, care to fix it where AC's and negative karma-ites can't MetaMod? Methinks we're being Had....
--
sooner or later, the only way to
run a truly value-added anything
is to become a real BOFH on trolls.
Re:slashcode translations (Score:2)
No, man, the question is,
--
sips is a light alternative (Score:2)
How to submit patches? (Score:2)
--
Re:In the name of all things good in this world (Score:2)
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Re:Wireless support (Score:2)
--GnrcMan--
Not the way to lock! (Score:2)
} else {
open LOCK,">/tmp/portald.pid"
or die "Can't open
print LOCK "$$";
close LOCK;
}
This is from the portald makeTmp subroutine.
You have to use flock or fcntl to make sure of
atomicity. You have a race condition between
when you open the file and when you write.
Re:Slashdot/win32: Doubt it! Bullshit (Score:2)
It's good to be root....
Re:DDoS (Score:2)
Re:so -- what's this mean? (Score:2)
overblown, messy, ugly Perl script going to do for me? Nothing, that's exactly what.
You like to flame huh? I would give up a good deal juts to be able to run the slash code or in fact any server type code on a web site. Being a sysadmin is a luxry that I do not have at the present time.
What slashdot has done rather successfully is take the concept of a nested and web based interative dynamic type of medium that usenet could only dream of. By eliminating the need for a specific client you make your access to millions instead of a trusted group of elites. It really depends on what you want to do. I think that the ability to dynamically add stories and bits of interest in a dynamic way is good. I was toying around with the idea of having dynamic content that could update a web page remotely. The only good script that I have seen as of yet has been one that hasn't worked on any of the unix systems I have tried it on despite using the portable perl language. I wish to god I could get this to work on one of the "free" sites. A few of them allow for the perl language but I haven't found one that would have both mySQL and perl with the necessary extensions. But I have a good idea why. Control C-O-N-T-R-O-L in it's most basic form. Oh sure speech is free but the presses aren't.
I don't understand this about the "Open Source" movement at all - there's all this messy code floating around out there that nobody would ever use in their right mind, and you've got to wade through so much of it just to find some
decent software, much less what you're looking for. It's probably no coincidence that Freshmeat, Slashdot's sister site, is one of the worst perpetrators of this travesty.
I think you miss the point entirely about the open source methodology. Essentially the code is out there to be fixed. That's about like saying that if you go to a garage and see people working on broken cars. They are doing this not to say that these cars work but that they are actively fixing them. What's happening here is a little less like a garage and more like a group of people "souping up" a car not only to fix the carburator but to give it a nice tune up when it's needed.
I, personally, believe that RMS and ERS and crew have some serious revising to do if the "Open Source" movement is to remain viable. First step would be to tell people that until their code is usable and cleaned up and ready for a
1.0 release, they should keep it to themselves!. Second, of course, would be to not throw it out on the web if you can't think of at least fifty people who'd want to use it - you're just cluttering the spiders and wasting your disk. This
applies equally as much to the Slash code.
You know I remember another AC who was whining and spamming a discussion with a discussion about the slashdot not being open. Multiple bitched and whined about it and then finally Malda got tired of having his mail box filled with 100,000,000 requests to open source the code and released it.
He knew damn well the code wasn't ready but he was pressured to release it. I personally thing the code is better for his decision and bugs that were possibly hindering the code have been worked out much more quickly.
Don't get me wrong - I think "Open Source" is an excellent idea. I just think the implementation is flawed.
You know I think it's people like you who deliberately make me wait for updates to my favorite open source updates and debian packages because you like seeing people squirm. There is no good technical argument that would support such a thing. Source should be open. The version dosn't matter because most projects are works in progress. I think the ultimate progress of systems is the main goal and not 100% stability.
In short if I want to risk my system with untested code I should be able to. If you want trusted code get a good linux distribution linux slackware 2.0 and update the entire thing by hand from source and do all the updates yourself. I tried that route and got insanely irritated with the results (which were usually very, very, frustrating because of little problems and not so little problems.
Re:Bulding a better Slashdot (Score:2)
Now is the chance. There can be a better Slashdot, which retains both the technical and non-technical aspects of
Unfortunately you have to get the kind of traffic that slashdot for your site to be even remotely successful in any way. That's really the tricky part or not. At one time I had a site that was being generated as the first match for a particular keyword on excite (no I won't tell you what it was). Also you have to keep that audience.
No more idiotic "trolls" who post worthless flames. No more brainless zealots whining about Linux for karma points. No more self-congratulatory "X device uses Linux" bullshit. No more targeted attempts to sell you worthless
linux-using merchandise. In breif, no more Rob Malda, Jeff Bates, Andover.net management, VA Linux, etc.
Again in your site becomes popular with anyone all the problems (well maybe not the editorial kind) with slashdot will come to you. Trolls were never asked to come to slashdot they came because they wanted to. Zealots can come if you have an open subscription of any kind and can even be created by your own "trusted" users.
Then maybe this whole idea will come together.
That would be an emense level of social engineering and isn't a trivial task. What is your outlook for this?
version numbers are meaningless! (Score:2)
Exactly what is the difference between Emacs vX.Y.Z and vA.B.C? I think the version numbers are automatically incremented by a random number generator.
Netscape Navigator 6.0, anyone? They probably shouldn't even call it "Netscape"...
Thank goodness I'm using Windows 98 here at work -- with a version number that high, it must be good!
--
In the name of all things good in this world (Score:2)
Phantom Slashdot (Score:2)
This needs to be fixed in Slashcode 1.1.
Otherwise, thanks for a great site, Pat and Chris.
Here's what I've found so far...
Slashdot Marketing [slashdot.org]
Hot Grits [slashdot.org]
Slashdot [slashdot.org]
Natalie Portman [slashdot.org]
Slashdot/win32: Doubt it! (Score:2)
Re:Phantom Slashdot (Score:3)
Squishdot (Score:3)
Good Job! (Score:3)
Way to go Slashdot!!
Re:so -- what's this mean? (Score:3)
It's really not enough just to upload the code to a public site and release it under one of the free (as in speech) licenses to call yourself "Open Source." While technically your source is open, there is much much more to that than just having publically accesible/modifiable code.
At the heart of the Open Source concept is the notion that software developers should "release early and release often." Note that this is entirely contrary to what you have suggested. It's ok. You're still learning.
The reason you release early is to catch major problems early, when they are minor ones. That way they don't develop into huge problems later which require an entire redesign. Note that Open Source isn't an instant cure for design problems; rather, by its very nature, more eyes see the code, more brains work on the concepts, and thus better solutions tend to arise.
The reason you release often is to keep things moving. Hoarding the code leads to a slow development process wrought with bugs. Releasing often encourages people to try the software and submit feedback, since they know that a new release which will address their concerns/bugs/RFEs is just around the corner. Without the release often, you are losing much of the benefit of open source.
You would do well to read ESR's The Cathedral and the Bazaar. It does an excellent job of documenting a particular example where the Open Source development process resulted in a high-quality application. Along the way it explains much of what I have hinted at, with documented evidence as proof.
May the source be with you.
More features? (Score:3)
So how about setting up a part of this venerable website as a general forum? Where folks can post questions which the Powers That Be may not consider worthy enough to post on the front page?
I'm trying to learn Linux, and often have questions directly related to the OS, or others about what type of programs are the best, the options- how exactly a recompile works and such.
It would be fantastic if I could post these questions in a general forum in case anyone is willing to help.
Or perhaps such a place exists already! But usually I have to remember 10 different newsgroups/webboards and which I posted questions to...
Kinda like an Open Ask Q/A section. Embrace and Extend?
Perhaps the moderation of such an area would be overwhelming. Then again, the same user-moderation scheme could be used there. Or perhaps just ask for volunteers from among those with the higher karma points.
Regardless, love the site and would really dig if it expanded in such a way.
Wireless support (Score:3)
--GnrcMan--
DDoS (Score:3)
I refer of course to the trolls who are waging a DDoS attack on moderator points. Just like any other DoS attack, they seek to consume all of a resource to prevent legitimate users from accessing it. Instead of consuming sockets, bandwidth, CPU, or disk space, these guys are consuming moderator points.
I've even noticed that the last several times I've moderated, I end up losing about 3-4 points of Karma. Now, perhaps I'm being "a bad moderator", but I don't think so: I take great care to moderate well and in the spirit of the Moderator guidelines. I wonder if the Trolls haven't managed to get several accounts they use for bogus MetaModeration.
So I wonder what if any attempts to correct this have been added to Slash1.0
Re:Wireless URL (Score:4)
You (Score:4)
If you think the Slash code sucks, you have not looked at recently, and don't know what you are talking about. It could stand for a lot of improvements, which we are busy making. But it is far from sucktitude.
If you think Perl is slow, you are a stupid troll. Go away.
If you think SquishZopePHPYourMamaSlash is better than Slash, then by all means, use it and shut up about it.
If you have patches or want to otherwise participate in developing Slash, make sure you post it on the Slashcode site (or better yet, please read the FAQ about how to help [slashcode.com], because if you don't, we might not see your contributions or patches or suggestions.
This has been a public service announcement. You can go back to your hot grits now.
Re:Kung Fu (Score:4)
"Hah! Taste my Third Heaven's Gate Parsing Strike!"
"Useless against Golden Willow Parts the Nested Documents!"
And lots of programmers wearing jeans and t-shirts flying around on cables through bamboo forests.
***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***
Re:slashcode translations (Score:5)
Database Independant Backend... (Score:5)
The basics are that you put all your db access methods in a Default.pm file (in the class hierarchy of your choosing). Then when you want to port to a new platform, anything that's different to your original development platform goes in [Driver].pm, where [Driver] is one of Sybase or Oracle or Pg, etc.
This has really simplified things for me on a cross platform development system, and I think it will for slashdot (and other systems) too.
Mail me direct if you have any questions.
Kung Fu (Score:5)
"Huh. So you wish. To review my code. You must be eager. To die. Huh."
slashcode translations (Score:5)
I load a page generated by slash 1.0? That is
the question.