Hi mark,

 DD> YMMV if you use a shim kludge.

 ml> hunh? what shim kludge are you speaking of? my 
 ml> mailer uses a FOSSIL to 
 ml> contact and converse with remote systems and hardware... 

 PK> The shim kludge of software specifically set up to handle IP
 PK> addresses extracted from a Phone no. field...

 ml> hunh?? sorry but frontdoor doesn't require a shim 
 ml> kludge to draw the IP number from the contact number 
 ml> field in the nodelist... 

Whatever the software is that translates the Nodelist Phone entry field
into an IP address is the "shim or kludge" that is being
discussed. Its irrelevant if that S/W is FD or something else, but
something is translating it from one meaning (a PSTN Phone number) into
another (an IP address). THAT is the "shim or kludge".

 ml> it never has since the 
 ml> feature/capability was introduced... in fact, at the 
 ml> time that it was introduced, it was perfectly within 
 ml> developing and existing practise ;)

I suspect what you are saying is that FD handles the data recored in the
Nodelist Phone number field in a manner that allows it to be interpreted as
an IP address, which means that FD itself IS the "shim or
kludge".


 PK> So in reality it all comes down to identifying what is meant by "a
 PK> shim kludge"..........;-)

 ml> well, i happen to know that DD was trying to go after 
 ml> the use of the SIO/vmodem package written for OS/2 
 ml> systems by the creator of x00, ray gwinn...

Which is also a form of shim or kludge, taking a modem "Dial
String" and interpreting that as an IP address (does Vmodem do DNS
lookups???).

 ml> my system just happens to have the capability of doing something 
 ml> that your's doesn't... 

Which is no loss to me because I have no need of doing that.......;-)


 PK> I actually think that nicely describes a "shim" or
"kludge". Your
 PK> software is making something designed for one thing think its
 PK> something else so that it can use it...

 ml> hunh? so you are saying that the FOSSIL stuff developed 
 ml> by fidonet and its developers is a kludge? 

No. I am saying that the original FOSSIL simply passes DATA from A (the
CPU) to B (a serial port) without a need to "translate" the
meaning of that data into something else. The fact that SOME FOSSIL
implementations (Vmodem notably) need to do something else other than talk
to a serial port, which means that is it ADDING to the original task of the
FOSSIL (Fido Opus Seadog Serial Interface Layer) by talking to the TCP/IP
stack, which is most definately NOT a Serial port.
  ml> somehow i 
 ml> think they'd all highly disagree with you on that 
 ml> without failure...

Well I think it would take a fairly brave person to try and sell the TCP/IP
stack as "just another form of serial port"........;-)

 PK> But all this coems down to what is meant by "shim" and/or
 PK> "kludge"... 

 ml> almost :)

You forgot to add "surely" after "almost"........;-)

Cheers..............pk.


--- Maximus/2 3.01