Re: [infobot] Re: infobot mailing lists

[David C. <da...@ca...>]

On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 05:14:13PM +0200, Jonathan Hitchcock wrote:

> Setting your withering sarcasm aside, I would have thought that the
> benefits of the ability to sit on an IRC channel *and* be accessible via
> MSN Messenger, Jabber, AIM, or SMS (via a GSM modem) is patently
> obvious.

Not really.  I don't see the point of MSN Messenger, Jabber or AIM :-)
and if I have GSM I can just ssh to my machine which is always running
irssi.  Don't expect to see me putting any effort into supporting
anything other than irc and email, cos that's all I care about for
messaging.

> An architecture that is not reliant on just one source is a good
> architecture.

Abstraction for the sake of abstraction is a waste of time.  Why make
people run two pieces of software (the backend and something to
communicate between it and irc) when one is sufficient?  Or if you want
to have an open specification with multiple monolithic implementations -
why?  What a terrible waste of programmers' branes, all writing the same
thing.  Wouldn't you rather write something innovative?

>               Abstraction from the nitty-gritty of protocol is a good
> thing.  That's all I was saying.

Every time I've hacked on infobot I didn't need to go anywhere need the
nitty-gritty of the irc protocol.

> That is not what I said at all.  Right from the beginning, I have simply
> been suggesting some ideas and technologies which were not in the
> original infobot.  I'm suggesting extending the original design and
> embracing new methods.  I'm also clearly pissing people off by
> suggesting that infobot is not perfect.

Don't be silly.  Infobot is a horrible mess.  But it's a horrible mess
which WORKS, and it works NOW.  I'm happy to invest time and effort into
making it less of a mess.  I'm not happy to waste time dicking around on
some ludicrously over-engineered project which aims to be the be all and
end all of bots but ends up with precisely 1 user (you) while everyone
else sticks with what's far simpler to set up and which, let me say it
again, WORKS NOW.

-- 
David Cantrell | Reality Engineer, Ministry of Information

      Good advice is always certain to be ignored,
      but that's no reason not to give it            -- Agatha Christie