[ic] Regret

[Davor Ocelic]

Dear Matt,

I planned to participate no further in this ongoing pointless discussion,
but some things you cay cannot be ignored, so here's my post.

First of all, it's of *crucial* importance that you understand why
questions like "What's the point of mailing lists?" cannot be answered
in a few words. Here's why:

You need to realize that Unix systems (which mailing lists build upon)
are superior in philosophy and practical implementation, have a tradition,
and encourage re-use of ideas and code.

Unix does not advertise heavily (like Microsoft does) because having a
copy of Unix in every household is not actually Unix vendors' dream.
(Not to mention that any serious Unix installations can't even run 
on PC computers).

Each mail you send reveals that you have absolutely no idea of what
Unix is, and what kind of people use it. And those few ideas of "Linux"
that you do have - are most probably wrong.

Unix solutions build on top of each other, and it is only natural that
you can't really see what "mailing lists" are - when you don't know
what's below the surface.

> And that is my point, why are you using a "mailing list"  concept that
> is 15 years old, when there are things like http://www.phpbb.com/ (AKA
> FORUMS)

Following the above logic - mailing lists have more background reasoning
than you, a home Windows PC user, were able to discover on your own.
(And exposure to Microsoft's products surely didn't aid your mental
sharpness, or ability to take crap for what it is - a crap, namely).

That the concept of mailing lists is "15 years old" (I think it's 
even more), can only be a strong indicator that people continually
find them to be useful.

> To lay out what a "Forum" is for the uninformed - A forum is an open
> discussion or a series of ideas.

Let me clear up few more things for you.

It is highly probable that no less than 100% of people on this
interchange-users mailing lists know what both mailing lists and
forums are.

Therefore your "lay out" can only be considered funny, and indicating
you have no idea what's your and what's our starting position in this
game.

Furthermore, let me explain you what forums are. Forums blossomed
when the idea of "a Windows PC in every household" became a reality.
The reason is twofold:

1) As plain Windows installation did not give you any useful software
   except a Web browser (and boy, that's a story for itself),
   PC/Windows programmers came to a brilliant idea (or it seemed so to
   them) to "port" standard Unix services to work inside a Web browser
   and (in the beginning) only work on Microsoft's proprietary
   (or at least obfuscated) principles.

2) A bunch of kids got access to computers and Internet, so lacking 
   any mature understanding of computers - they encouraged flawed
   implementations or even participated in creating them.

Somewhere along the way, all those people forgot that their ideas came
from Unix (or weren't even aware of existing Unix offerings),
so they gave them new names, introduced some totally concepts-defying
problems in implementation, and released them to the World
as "inventions".

You, as we can tell unfortunately, didn't stand a chance in 
resisting Microsoft's mercyless bombarding with advertisements that
are purposely vague, deceiving, and only partly (if at all) true.

And finally, concerning the particular implementation of phpBB
that you keep referencing:

1) It is a re-write of YaBB (Perl programming language)
   in PHP programming language.

2) Both YaBB and phpBB are "developed" by highschool kids.

3) The code is so incompetent, that anyone speaking of phpBB
   is declaring himself as being unable to recognize even the
   most problematic software products.

4) Forums do not have a purpose.


And for God sake, please don't reply to recent Sandy Thomson's
post saying that forums too have a user banning feature.


-docelic