lynx-dev Happy New Year [again]

[Patrick]

In "Re: lynx-dev 2.8.4dev.15"
[28/Dec/2000 Thu 19:33:44]
Henry Nelson wrote:

[stuff about po files, snipped]
> > it's the only way that was suggested to make them maintainable.
>        ^^^^^^^^^^^^      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> What does "the only way" mean, putting in the complete *.po file?  What,
> when and whose suggestion are you referring to?  I thought "maintainable"
> only meant compilable to you.
> 
> > I already did that (the stubs in the tar file are from some trash on
> 
> "Stubs?"  There isn't a single _stub file_ in there!
> 
> Happy New Year.  (Looking more and more like the last for Lynx.)

Ouch.  You know, even if you're right, and Lynx development grinds
to a permanent halt, people who like it [me, for example] will
still use Lynx until the Web changes so completely that it can
no longer read the content, or until it can no longer run on
machines/systems of the day.  Even then, some of us might keep
old computers sitting around to house our favourite relics.

But I doubt that.  It's already proved its usefulness for "web-ready"
cell phones and other handheld devices that can't do graphics.
And it's tremendously useful to *people* who can't do graphics.

Now, most of the bug fixes and tweaks I've seen lately are kind
of small and rather arcane.  Worthy causes all of them, but nothing
earth-shattering, you know what I mean?  If these are the worst
problems. . .  NO PROBLEM.  If it's been too difficult to make
broader changes and improvements, because the source is getting
too tangled [over 400 source files?  I didn't know that], why
not hold off on repairs for a while and focus on cleaning up?
Once that's done, the really amazing stuff like tables and JavaScript
support might be easier to do.

I've read some things about Rube Goldberg devices in the source
[mentioned and fixed by Gil from StorageTek], and something earlier
about how "spagetti programming helps no one" in open-source programs,
because chunks of code can't be reused in other projects.  Well,
these things happen as a project grows: one contribution/addition/patch
is piled on top of another until you have a fantastically complex
structure built by no one.  A cathedral designed by a schizophrenic.

I'm not criticising; it's really hard to avoid that.  In simplifying
and cleaning the source, your complaint about the "over 30 minutes"
download should also be eased a bit.

Hell, it might also be fun.  Who knows what you might find in
there?


                             Patrick
                   <mailto:address@hidden>
                <http://www.island.net/~pboylan/>


siseneG
        And God said:
        "lines one to aleph, delete."
        And the Universe ceased to exist.
        Then She paused for an aeon, and sighed:
        "Cancel program."
        And then it had never existed.
                                --Arthur C. Clark

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