Re: LYNX-DEV Re: chartrans stuff

[David Combs]

It would seem to me that ANY situation that forces
Foteus to react in such a manner is a DISASTER for
lynx!!!!!!!!

Being just a lurker, and user, and not hacking on the
code, I don't really know what this is all about,
except that it is obvious that it is SERIOUS.

It surely not to the advantage of the lynx community
for Foteus to abandon the project BECAUSE he thinks
the code is being DESTROYED by others.

Perhaps it is just a "he said, she said" kind of
disagreement (that is, poorly stated just above (by me),
that there is no ABSOLUTE ONE RIGHT WAY to handle
the coding, or perhaps there IS, and one person
(who?) is just plain WRONG).

How to find out?  Well, there's a fairly large
number of people who have hacked on the code
at one time or another.  THOSE PEOPLE would
be the ones, I think, to decide on the TRUTH
and on the RIGHT WAY TO PROCEED.

Possibly the only way to solve this mess and
be able to proceed into the future with CLEAR code
is for those who understand the code or at least
most of it ACTUALLY MEET somewhere, maybe for
a weekend.

I myself don't know who lives where, but maybe 
those who know this code could reply to lynx-dev
and say where they live, and a list be built up
of these addresses and names, and then some 
subset of them agree to actually meet and hash
this thing out.

Perhaps even each of us on lynx-dev mailing list
could contribute some $$$ (each according to
his/her ability & size of company's usage of lynx)
to airfares for a meeting -- once we all agree
that the subset looks OK to us.

This lynx program is FAR too important to all of
us to have this kind of conflict either split or
destroy its futher development and bug-fixing.

Please lets get a conversation going and continuing
on this problem -- we cannot allow the code to
go in a way that makes Foteus disavow it all!

That's what I think, anyway.

David Combs  914-632-1883

> From address@hidden Tue Dec 23 00:19:43 1997
> Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 02:37:14 -0500 (EST)
> From: Foteos Macrides <address@hidden>
> ...
>       I've inferred during the past year that TD is severely lacking in
> basic reading comprehension and written communication skills, so this
> message is directed to the Lynx User Community, with no expectation that
> TD will get it this time, any better than he has the other times that
> I've posted explanatory messages about these matters.
> 
>       I am not a "currently active Lynx developer", and have not myself
> inserted even one line of new code into the "official development code set".
> I dropped out from "currently active Lynx developer" status upon the
> release of lynx2-6FM as v2.7 on February 15, 1997.  I continued to
> modify the Lynx code that I personally use, and made those mods available in
> compliance with the GNU GPL, for anyone, including the "currently active Lynx
> developers", to do with as they pleased, if anything.  Klaus was including
...
...
> personal code set was released on April 4, 1997 as v2.7.1.  Soon thereafter,
> we parted company over the, from my perspective, severely misguided
> "INTERNAL_LINKS stuff", which persist in the development code, and preclude
> my ever using that code set seriously.  The quality of communication between
> myself and two of the active developers (TD & KW) also deteriorated,
> progressively worsing from that point on.  The "preparsed stuff" was added to
> the development code set, severely distorting the underlying logic of Lynx's
> structured object interactions, further preluding my ever using that code set
> seriously.  The "chartrans stuff" has continued to get more complex in the
> development code set, to the point where it is just plain "unmaintainable",
> IMHO, even by KW.  My repeated requests to spell out the logic of the
> "chartrans stuff" and where it is going, in a manner that would be
...
> 
>       Things reached the point, upon my reading Henry's "pickle parable",
> that I removed my personal code set from
> http://www.slcc.edu/lynx/fote/patches/  and made it available only via
> our gopher server, intended solely for those who needed it in conjunction
> with my lynx271ssleay.zip SSL hook replacement files, and with the
> expectation that the development code as it stood at that point would be
> polished up for an official release, and I would fully drop out at that
> point as far as making my personal code set available via a public access
...
...