I do understand his motives, and I agree with them.
I don't think he should have tried to develop several new products at the same time he was working on the central logic, but sometimes it's the development of these other projects that show the weaknesses -- or needed features -- of the core logic.
If you notice, the current version uses some core logic to define many complicated stepts, and to put them into a single, simple function call.
As we all know, not all of the features worked all the time. But it was a 1.0 release, and the big fixes were made for the 1.11 release, and it _is_ stable. It's just not what everyone wants.
What is the links program? It's a means of putting data into an SQL database, and getting data out of that database.
The more, and more robust and flexible, the utilities are to access and manipulate, and output that data, the better the programs, and the easier it is to write those programs.
Rather than hacking the source code in 20 different places, if you can change one central core logic area, you have more stable and maintainable code.
If all the "application" code runs on this core logic, then as technology and algorithms change, you can update, upgrade, and tweak this core logic without affecting the application code -- the same way you can tweak, change, and manipulate the templates to change the look of your site, and not have to change any source code.
Those of you who used the site_html.pl file, rather than the templates with Links 2.0 know what I'm talking about.
Anyway, Alex is guilty of the same thing we all have been at times -- believing we can deliver more in shorter time than reality will allow. Computers are not perfect, and sometimes no matter how hard and how many hours you put into it, you can't get the code working. It's not like laying out a newspaper or typing story. The computer itself (and the network, Mysql, perl, etc) all add layers of complexity to the 'idea'.
I'm hoping for a central core of utilities that can be added to, so that we can create plug-ins to do extra work, add features, change features, etc without having to re-do our entire site. A way of adding in any number of features -- forum,mail, chat, auctions, news, -- anything -- simply by tapping into existing modules, or writing new ones that work with them.
Big dreams... but reusability of source code is an idea I bought into 20 years ago, and I'm more convinced of it now than ever before.
Objects and modules have expanded that. These are exciting times.
FWIW -- if you can find a betterprogram, or support, go for it.
I like what I've seen here, and I'm willing to keep my fingers crossed for the next week or so to see what happens.
http://www.postcards.com
FAQ: http://www.postcards.com/FAQ/LinkSQL/
I don't think he should have tried to develop several new products at the same time he was working on the central logic, but sometimes it's the development of these other projects that show the weaknesses -- or needed features -- of the core logic.
If you notice, the current version uses some core logic to define many complicated stepts, and to put them into a single, simple function call.
As we all know, not all of the features worked all the time. But it was a 1.0 release, and the big fixes were made for the 1.11 release, and it _is_ stable. It's just not what everyone wants.
What is the links program? It's a means of putting data into an SQL database, and getting data out of that database.
The more, and more robust and flexible, the utilities are to access and manipulate, and output that data, the better the programs, and the easier it is to write those programs.
Rather than hacking the source code in 20 different places, if you can change one central core logic area, you have more stable and maintainable code.
If all the "application" code runs on this core logic, then as technology and algorithms change, you can update, upgrade, and tweak this core logic without affecting the application code -- the same way you can tweak, change, and manipulate the templates to change the look of your site, and not have to change any source code.
Those of you who used the site_html.pl file, rather than the templates with Links 2.0 know what I'm talking about.
Anyway, Alex is guilty of the same thing we all have been at times -- believing we can deliver more in shorter time than reality will allow. Computers are not perfect, and sometimes no matter how hard and how many hours you put into it, you can't get the code working. It's not like laying out a newspaper or typing story. The computer itself (and the network, Mysql, perl, etc) all add layers of complexity to the 'idea'.
I'm hoping for a central core of utilities that can be added to, so that we can create plug-ins to do extra work, add features, change features, etc without having to re-do our entire site. A way of adding in any number of features -- forum,mail, chat, auctions, news, -- anything -- simply by tapping into existing modules, or writing new ones that work with them.
Big dreams... but reusability of source code is an idea I bought into 20 years ago, and I'm more convinced of it now than ever before.
Objects and modules have expanded that. These are exciting times.
FWIW -- if you can find a betterprogram, or support, go for it.
I like what I've seen here, and I'm willing to keep my fingers crossed for the next week or so to see what happens.
http://www.postcards.com
FAQ: http://www.postcards.com/FAQ/LinkSQL/
