Hey mark!

Feb 13 20:49 05, mark lewis wrote to Maurice Kinal:

 ml>>> but then it wouldn't have been storable in a longint ;)

 MK>> Do you mean 64 bits?

 ml> no... 32bits... isn't that what you been "fussing" about? ;)

Sort of.  That as the best I could come up with looking at the 8 last
charaters in the MSGID.  It is doable but tacking on 2 more characters (two
bytes) would be so much better and I think worth far more then the lousy
stinkin' two bytes it would cost.

 ml> in pascal, a longint is a signed 32bit number...

Only on a 16 bit system.  Mind you I've only encountered pascal in DOS so
that might explain it.  I've heard tales of ports to Linux so I'd imagine a
longint's meaning may have been altered a tad, at least to some pascal
programmers.

 MK>> You must be doing 16 bit DOS-think.  ;-)

 ml> that's where fido was designed and built ;)

For most maybe.  I've also heard tales of Amiga but have never encountered
one of those.  What did they use?

 ml> nah, it has everything to do with hobbiests developing and creating 
 ml> the network we lovingly call fidonet...

Understood.  That's one of it's attractions, or at least I personally would
find it an attraction if it were true today.  Often an integral part of any
hobby is having a hand in construction somewhere along the line and at some
level.

 ml> that may very well be... today, the problem is "all the old
guys" and 
 ml> not wanting to update or upgrade as well as fear of the unknown... 
 ml> seems that those remaining who helped develope fidonet have lost 
 ml> their curiousity in their waning years O:)

Possibly.  I am not convinced that it is the entire problem of if it is
indeed the problem.  Perhaps some think too highly of what was and forgot
about what can be.  I find potential to be intriguing and the past to be a
base to grow from.  However change for change's sake isn't an admirable
attribute.  If there is indeed a viable solution to problem(s) then a
refusal to that change demonstrates fear rather then good sense and reason.

 ml> that's wierd... i've seen stuff done in perl (and other similar 
 ml> languages) to be a lot slower than the same stuff in compiled form 
 ml> from pascal, delphi, and some of that C stuff ;)

Same here.  I've also seen the reverse situation.  For instance I used to
use basic for one time alterations to a data set that would have taken
quite a bit longer then using a spreadsheet or simular application to
accomplish.  A simple edit to an existing script can do wonders for it's
usefulness and efficiency.  It always depends on the circumstance.  In this
case it takes quite a bit less to experiment with a piece of code, say a
MSGID generator, using Perl then it would to compile each edit every time
and then test it.  No?

Anyhow it depends on the application.  Sometimes scripting is a superior method.

 MK>> I won't bother elaborating.  Anyhow perl works great on the
 MK>> console so I am happy with it.

 ml> i hear ya there!

:-)  Good to see I am not the only one who still appreciates it.

 ml> it is possible... then again, i look around and see folk converting 
 ml> their squish message bases to mbox format and using "stuff" on the 
 ml> backside to access it...

Yeah that would be alright for some.  Myself I'd appreciate using vim for
everything.  I like vim and I think it would make an excellent frontend for
Fido messaging.  Kind of a personal preferance thingy though.

 ml> i'm not sure, but i suspect that 
 ml> fidonet.sensationcontent.??? is doing the same... it's either that or 
 ml> stuffing it in a sql database and throwing mucho horsepower at it for 
 ml> the access speed to retrieve it... the connection speed is another 
 ml> factor, altogether...

Right.  I've heard simular tales, usually revolving around mysql.

 ml> majorly... FWIW: a gedcom file is a simple ASCII text file... the one 
 ml> that i'm working with is right at 16meg in size ;)

Try that on a 386-16 with 1M ram, running an older DOS (I forget what
version), on a 20M HD, while all the while considering how it'll behave on
a 64 bit UNIX system.  I double dare you!  ;-)

Yeah times have changed for sure.  Fido should consider change before it
totally dies.  It may be for the best.  Maybe not but nobody (remember
him?) will ever know without someone making the attempt.

Life is good,
Maurice

--- Msged/LNX 6.1.2