Jargons of Info Tech industry

[John Bokma]

Denis Kasak <denis.kasak at gmail.com> wrote:

> John Bokma wrote:
>> Ulrich Hobelmann <u.hobelmann at web.de> wrote:
>> 
>>> John Bokma wrote:
>>>> http://www.phpbb.com/mods/
>>> 
>>> Great.  How can I, the user, choose, how to use a mod on a given web
>>> server?
>> 
>> Ask the admin?
> 
> And that is, in your opinion, completely comparable to running your
> own, private client?

Oh, but if you want your own private client, feel free to come up with
one. I for one would welcome an XML interface to for example phpBB. (Not
sure if such a thing exists). So I agree with you for a part. 

However, how many people, do *need* a kill file? Most boards have active
moderators. Also, in my experience, most boards are a tighter knit crowd
with less need for kill filing. 

> Is the admin obliged to install the mod?

No, but in my experience, they listen.

> Is the admin 
> even reachable?

Of course.

>> Otherwise: fetch HTML, parse it, restructure it, and have the
>> application run a local webserver. Python, Perl, piece of cake. 
> 
> You seem to be forgetting that we are mainly talking about end users 
> here

No, I am not. Most end users of those boards don't *require* what you
want, you look at a board from a programmers point of view. And hence,
as a programmer you *can* do such things. 

> who most probably will not have the sufficient expertise to do all

moreover he/she doesn't care.
 
> that. And even if they do, it's still time consuming.

If I am not happy with my Usenet client, I have the same problem. I like
Xnews for example, but AFAIK it's closed source. I don't know of any
open source Windows client that comes close to Xnews. 

It's time consuming because there is (yet) no need for it. When I
started to use Usenet there where only a handful of clients (IIRC), nn
and another one (rn?) are the only ones that I can recall. 

Like I said, it's not that hard to create a SOAP/XML-RPC interface to,
for example phpBB. Maybe it's already there. The tools are there. And a
next step could be to create a wrapper, one end acts as a local nntp
server, the other end talks using XML with phpBB. 

Once that's written, you could use (probably within limits) a Usenet
client :-) 

Now this seems to be cross posted in several comp.lang groups. Anyone?

-- 
John                   Small Perl scripts: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
               Perl programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html