Text 310, 82 rader
Skriven 2005-03-30 11:40:37 av Russell Tiedt (5:7105/1)
     Kommentar till en text av Maurice Kinal
Ärende: don't cry for me I have vi
==================================
Hello Maurice.

29 Mar 05 08:00, you wrote to me:

 MK> Hey Russell!

 RT>> Well, "mbox" or "news spool" are native Linux message storage
 RT>> formats, that work for large "message bases" <grin> and editors
 RT>> for both are plentifull, there is a news2mail and a mail to news
 RT>> filter already available, so you just need to ad a FidoNet one,
 RT>> and you have most bases covered. <BEG>

 MK> They may be native but didn't originate with Linux.  They are ports.
 MK> After playing with them, albiet at a very low level, I think I'd
 MK> prefer coming up with a suitable internal format that is condusive to
 MK> reformatting to what any individual user desires and keeping the
 MK> archives minimalized to the bare essentials.  Speaking as a user the
 MK> "offline" would be something I coud use with vi, such as what I am
 MK> doing as we speak.  However my neighbour was more impressed with the
 MK> email idea and we'll try that and seee if we can roust some action out
 MK> of him.

Yeah, okay, do be pendantic, <grin> they might not be native, but might 
qualify as "defaults" are well documented, and there are legions of 
readers/editors for both.

Formatting should be left to the reader/editor to perform, me thinks ... <g>

As to the storage base, it could be anthing one chooses, even old MSG format, 
with rieserfs, could work real well ...

And from my point of view, there is no real point in stripping the storage 
format for your msgbase down to the bare bones, when all PC's have more than 
sufficient hard drive space to handle the current formats, BUT ...

If you want to cater for the emerging trend in Cellphone/handheld type 
devices, well fine, but even there they will start with compact flash card 
memory of one or other type that can be upgraded to the gigabyte region, there 
already are GSM cellphone devices that will handle 2 MB's a second, using 3G 
data protocols and varing add on's, cellphone memory is jumping from 2MB to 
64MB and higher for those that directly support compactflash type drives.

The trend with GSM here is that as the networks bandwidth grows, the cost of 
data transfer drops dramatically.

3 months ago, one would have paid R100-00 for transfering 2MB of data across 
the local GSM network, to-day, you will only pay R10-00 for that same 2MB of 
data, simply because of the increase in bandwidth, brought abought by the 
introduction of 3G GSM data ability.

So, even on handhelds/cellphones, there is not much of a reason to go all the 
way to bare bones msgbase storage, tho there CPU power is a lot less, so it 
might not be a total dead loss, but even that is increaseing by leaps and 
bounds, not to the degree of flash storage mediums, but it is still making 
remarkable progress, year to year, and on occasion, every six months or so ... 
:-((

Not that I think your idea of a barebones msgbase is not without merit, I just 
don't see the nessecity for taking it to the extreme you are attempting, then 
it just might be ...

Might be usefull for a web based msg forum, where web space is still rather 
expensive, all I have available is 10MB's, and if it uses PERL, PYTHON or 
RUBY, which are installed on the host, that would allow the hosting of 5-6 msg 
areas with 150-200 msgs each, that might be wortwhile ...

 RT>> Well, the fact that most of it originated on DOS systems, and
 RT>> their limitations, keeping that in mind, will give one grounds
 RT>> for "extenuating circumstances" <grin>

 MK> Using DOS as an excuse for all this doesn't really wash.  I used to be
 MK> able to get DOS to behave more Unixie ages ago.  It was the multi
 MK> parts where DOS was crippled.  A BBS truly belongs in an Unix
 MK> enviroment, not DOS.  It can't handle it.

No it cannot, but, that doesn't matter much, till the last DOS user moves on 
or dies of old age.

Russell

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5
 * Origin: Rusty's BBS - Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa (5:7105/1)