[Tutor] [ot] comp.lang.python

[Remco Gerlich]

On Sun, Mar 11, 2001 at 07:50:41PM +0900, kevin parks wrote:
> Anyone here know how i can read USENET newsgroups over the web. For the
> last year or so i was an avid www.deja.com user, but Google has decide to
> buy and destroy deja.com microsoft-style -- gobbling up Deja, killing it's

This is not right. Deja is broke. Google bought a copy of the database
*just* in time, according to the people there who did the copying, they
managed to copy things off the drives about 10 minutes before the machines
were hauled away. Google saved the archive. They've just had a few weeks
time now to set up a whole web infrastructure for it. Be patient, furrfu.

Google are the good guys. They have the best and best looking web search
engine, they use Python all over the place, I already like their Usenet
interface better than Deja's ever was, *they have a clue*, and I'm sure
posting from them will be great soon as well.

> user's accounts (save e-mail) -- www bookmarks, saved threads, etc. are all
> gone now), and replacing it with a service which is really only a search and
> not a full blown news reader, poster, archiver, etc. 

They are working on it, as their page says. I'd like to see you setup such a
site in a month...

> This has left me high and
> dry as i love to read comp.lang.python and now am really not able to (unless
> you want to read the same messages over and over, not be able to mark them
> read, reply, start a post, etc.

Try some of the ones that Google suggests, ie
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Usenet/Web_Based/

Of course, reading Usenet on the Web sucks. Doesn't your ISP have a news
server? If not, searching for "free news server" on Google gives quite a few
sites that list open news servers (but this is not ideal since those servers
are often open by accident, so you have to find a new one now and then).
Good newsreaders for Windows are for instance XNews and Free Agent.
There are some commercial news servers as well, but I don't know the names.

And in the end, all that comp.lang.python is, is a mirror of the Python
mailing list. You can always use that interface, same way you read the Tutor
list now. Unfortunately, it has far more posts...

> google sucks for snuffing out deja and not replacing it with anything
> remotely like it. What they have up there now is simply searching. Ughh.

Deja snuffed out itself. Google only bought a copy, Deja could have
continued if it wanted to, but it's hard when all your computers are being
sold by people you owe money to...

And of course, if you really hate the way Google does it, you can always ask
your money back ;)

-- 
Remco Gerlich