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On Aug 8, 12:07am, Jeff Warnica wrote:
} John Nemeth wrote:
}
} > I think it will be several years yet before Community Nets can
} > move completely away from standard text logins. At this time it is
} > easy for the financially disadvantaged to get older computers (ranging
} > up to 386's and low-end 486's), since these are basically give-away
} > items. However, these machines are not suitable for running current
} > Internet apps. For that, you need a high-end 486 (486DX4/100 w/16M RAM
} > and 500M HD minimum), or more preferable, a Pentium class machine.
}
} As time goes by, give away items become more powerful. The traling edge of
Granted, but we're not there yet. And, even once high-end 486's /
low-end Pentiums become give away items, it will still take a couple of
years for them to get into the hands of the majority of people that
can't afford to buy them. Also, given that these machines are still
useful for many things, some people may keep them as a second machine.
} computer technology moves forward at a slightly faster rate then the
} bleeding edge. (because not only are new machines faster/bigger the per unit
} costs are decreasing)
Very slowly. Entry level machines tend to cost about $1000
regardless of the technology. The price may even go up a bit due to
things like RAM, which has a tendency to have wild swings in price.
} > These machines still cost real money, which a large portion of the
} > population can't afford. The whole idea behind Community Nets is to
} > bring the Internet to everybody, in particular the financially
} > disadvantaged. For this reason, I do not see the text interface going
}
} Yes, to /everyone/ not only the financially disadvantaged. I dont know about
Of course. My point was that there is a large segment of the
population that can't afford a more traditional ISP, even with the
decreases in price that have been happening.
} Aside from the low cost, I cant think of any reason to use (chebuto) over a
} "real" ISP. This is a bigger problem than a technicial issue: people new to
Then why do you bother? Anyways, I'm going to have to disagree.
Community nets provide several things, including local content, a way
to associate with local users (i.e. strictly local newsgroups), a
gentle introduction to the Internet, amongst other things. Many people
see value in them. I personally know of several people that have
regular ISP accounts, but still donate money to VTN.
} the internet are getting fancy new machines and a DSL or cable modem
} connection. Dialup ISP in general are dying the slow death, and text login
Some of the above mentioned people that still donate have cable
modems. Every form of technology tends to be replaced eventually.
Yes, the dialup ISP is dying, but not yet. Things like xDSL and cable
modem are very expensive for people that just want to do e-mail and
ocassional surfing.
} to lynx (hear anyway) are dying a faster death.
Maybe so, but not for several years.
} > So far I have not seen a good reason for moving away from namedb
} > to a more complex SQL implementation. The limitations of a particular
}
} More complex? SQL would be far less complex, and more easily expanded on.
A real database program is more complex to setup and maintain then
a bunch of text files.
} A current real problem here is that weve gone to being a non-profit org, and
} we have to issue tax recepts back to Jan 1. Now I realy dont know anything
VTN did this last year. It's not a big deal.
} about accessing namedb, and have little experience with shell scripts. But I
} could hack together a FoxPro prog to do that in less than an hour. Or (gasp)
} in Adm. Harpers little pet language as well. Thats just a fancy form writer,
} anyway.
This only speaks to your experience. I could do it faster with
namedb. Don't forget that every night, namedb is summarised and the
entire thing is placed in $CS_ROOT/private/ud*. One small awk command
(not even a script) would extract the needed information.
} As you point out, frequently csuite is implemented by people who arent
} programers or sysadmins. All community nets are going to have to do a little
} bit of custom programing, and some data mining, and it a lot easier to learn
If they don't have at least some technical experience, they aren't
going to be doing this no matter how easy we make it. For most
community nets the capability just simply isn't there. That's why
CSuite is designed to be turnkey installation and easy administration
via things like web forms. Only the larger sites need to do custom
programming, and they are the only ones that will be doing it.
} SQL than namedb processing. You can get a bright yellow access or foxpro of
} SQL book for $50. You cant get any documentation for namedb processing
You could also buy a book on shell programming or PERL. Depending
on your various career goals, those may or may not be better choices.
} anywhere, because it has /never/ been documented. "Read the source" dosent
} help because wer talking about people who cant read the source, afterall.
I'll deal with this issue in another note.
} > (basic software engineering principals come into play here). This
} > means that, as I mentioned before, the first step in changing the user
} > database is to abstract the interface to it. This makes the PHP issue
}
} Just write a bunch of common wrapper routines that one uses for talking to
} namedb, so you can change the internal structure of it and than you only
} have to chang your wrappers.
This is what I said, albeit worded somewhat differently.
} Why not just abstrach it to SQL? Your rewriting evrything anyway, arent you?
I would only rewrite stuff it I have a need to do it. I have
enough things to do without engaging in make work projects.
} > machine, nevermind multiple machines. It is much easier and cheaper to
} > administrate one machine then it is to administrate a network with
} > multiple servers. There are a few larger sites that are lucky to be
} > run by professional system administrators (who usually have "day"
} > jobs), but that is not the norm.
}
} Well, if your not having logins (and prehaps even then) the only extra
} administration would be exporting some filesystems, and then spending a
} little longer setting up the new machine. After day one there is nothing
} eles to do. Nobody has one machine, its farms of clones everywhere.
Apparently, you don't have much experience administering multi
machine sites (or single machines for that matter, even with all the
advances in automation, machines still don't administrate themselves).
As somebody that does regular administration of several multi machine
sites, I will say that this statement definitely isn't true. Alos,
large sites don't use clones since they want reliable hardware. Very
small sites (i.e. most community nets) don't use multiple machines,
because they really don't have the knowledge to admin