Subj : Re: Getting new users
To   : Tracker1
From : boraxman
Date : Tue Oct 18 2022 13:45:10

 Tr>  > Web forums can be responsive, but they are generally not built that
 Tr>  > way.  Some discussion places, such as Reddit are horrendously slow,
 Tr>  > and only made tolerable with TUI clients such as "Reddit Terminal
 Tr>  > Viewer".
 Tr> 
 Tr> Yeah, in general web development, even when using good tools/frameworks 
 Tr> usually winds up with some crazy dependencies that bring in the jungle 
 Tr> for a banana... they can be good, but often aren't in practice, and the 
 Tr> amount of effort it sometimes takes is more than a lot of people will
 Tr> make.

It's amazing how easy it is today, to want a simple library, and end up pulling in 20+ dependencies which add megabytes.  Occasionally I'll install some program written in Python or Ruby, or something which uses npm, and find a simple tool needs to download all these dependencies.  At this point I back away like someone stumbling across a rattlesnake.

I do think a lot of devs are either arrogant, or simply don't really understand economy, or how computers actually work.  I find a lot of the solutions that come out of the software industry now completely inexcusable, things that in any other engineering industry would not be tolerated.

 Tr>  > I would like to try NNTP to access a BBS discussion, I do mostly just
 Tr>  > use the BBS itself, and occasionally use Multimail.  I do prefer a
 Tr>  > "text mode" interface, which is less cluttered, allows focus.  This
 Tr>  > view would be a minority view, I bet.
 Tr>  >
 Tr>  > Being able to upload/download a QWK packet without having to log in
 Tr>  > through telnet and go through the BBS interface would be a major
 Tr>  > hurdle overcome in making it more accessible.  This would mean that a
 Tr>  > QWK reader on the mobile could draw new message, and upload, without
 Tr>  > having to deal with the issues of rendering an 80x25 interface to be
 Tr>  > navigated for updates.
 Tr> 
 Tr> Synchronet supports both of those use cases pretty well... NNTP is in 
 Tr> the box, though not always the speediest thing.  As to QWK, it will 
 Tr> generate on demand via FTP, would be nice if it had endpoints for HTTP 
 Tr> GET/POST that worked the same way though.
 Tr> -- 

I'm trying OpenXP, but haven't gotten it working properly yet.

I'm actually quite OK with my current workflow, but for others these extra steps I take could be the difference between them trying to engage in a BBS based discussion, or not bothering at all.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

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