Autocoding project proposal.

[Peter Hansen]

phil hunt wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 26 Jan 2002 14:15:21 GMT, Timothy Rue <threeseas at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> >>(2) describe your project so that people can more easily understand it.
> >>You should aim to do this an a paragraph or three; any longer is too
> >>long.
> >
> >Show me this.
> 
> How can I write a summary of something i don't understand? Obviously
> I cannot. Instead I will point you to something I have written that
> I consider easy to understand (YMMV -- if so btell me):
> 
> <http://www.vision25.demon.co.uk/oss/herbivore/intro.html>
> 
> Particularly the example given in the coloured box:

See, Timothy, I went to Phil's site, even before I realized he had
posted exactly that example into the message.  I read the example
(because it was short and it appeared likely I would be able to
understand it).  I believe I do understand it.

As a result, with only a few seconds reading (and no doubt more
than a couple of minutes of writing on Phil's part) I can communicate
to you that Herbivore is a framework for encrypting emails with
public-key cryptography which functions in such a way that it 
is generally transparent to the users for regular use.  That is
doubtless incomplete, but I hope essentially accurate.

And I say "brilliant!".  That would be a very good way to 
get secure mail into the hands of a much wider audience, and
had I the time I would jump on board to help with this project.
I might even try to use it myself when I stumble across an
announcement of a beta release or something.

All that with just two posts by Phil (I saw his previous one
contrasting what he did with the Herbivore project and
what you are doing).  Given that he was trying to help explain
things to _you_ in posting these messages, and yet he managed
simultaneously to explain to _me_ what he was doing (piggybacking
on top of your conversation! :-), maybe you can learn something
here...

> >You see I have done this before, even
> >getting it down to 20 words or less for those who wanted it that way.
> >Guess what? They then complained it did describe enough.

I wasn't one who complained.  Please re-post those 20 words and
let us judge for ourselves, again.  My summary (perhaps slightly
incorrect, but give me some leeway as I'm not the project author)
of Herbivore above is 28 words, counting even "a" and "the"...
You can even use 50 words if it will be easier.

-Peter