Just Passing By

Just Passing By

[Andrew Carroll]

Okay, here we go.

> ------------------------------
> Message: 3
> From: Marius Amado Alves <amado.alves@netcabo.pt>
> Subject: Re: Mneson
>
> Andrew Carroll wrote:
>
> > You know, come to think of it [snip]
> Maybe. I used to lurk some of the AdaBIND posts on this list, and I
have
> just checked the website. I strongly feel the lack of a high level
> description of AdaBIND,

let me signal an interrupt right there.
We only get 255 characters for the description.  To boot, I'm new to
sourceforge so I get lost just logging in.  Yes, I have figured out how
to edit the web site for AdaBIND at sourceforge and I put a little
description there.  Believe me, it's nothing fancy.
and jump...

> including a rationale for rewriting BIND.

Rational?  It's currently written in C, need I say more?  Ah, okay, I
don't want to start another long discussion.  I get enough email as it
is.
We, meaning Ludovic, I and one other person from CLA (who actually
mentioned they would use AdaBIND) feel that we would feel more
comfortable using BIND if it were written in a language like Ada.  The
reasons go back to all the discussions here on CLA about C vs. Ada.  I
don't know how else to say it without writing the vision document.

> BIND seems a complicated domain on itself and with many complicated
> implications. I myself know only 0.000001% of this domain. And nobody
is [snip]

Excellent.  Send me a message on the mailing list for the project and
Ludovic or I will set you up with a login, er shell, er an account or
something.

> ------------------------------
> Message: 6
> From: "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>
> Subject: Re: Improving Ada's image
>
> Andrew Carroll wrote:
>
> > I have an idea.  I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
> > lets form an international company.  [snip]
>
> Create an Ada credit card company, where the profits go
> into promoting the use of Ada. The card must offer
> competitive rates to be attractive (if they can
> introduce a Penguin card then..)
> --
> Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
> http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg

Warren, you are a genius!!  I don't personally care for 'credit' (it's
too much like usury) but maybe others don't view it that way.  Better
yet, we could tie in the educational topics here on CLA and come up with
a card for students.  Students who use C pay 21% interest and students
who use Ada get an extra 19% off!  Ehh, maybe that's not fair.  Warren,
can you tell me more about how to start a card?


> ------------------------------
> Message: 3
> From: Bj?rn Persson <spam-away@nowhere.nil>
> Subject: Re: Improving Ada's image
>
> Andrew Carroll wrote:
> > I have an idea.  I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
> > lets form an international company.  [snip]
>
> Seeing that I'm unemployed I'm vaguely interested in anything that
could
> get me a programming job, but I'm afraid I'm not the right person to
run
> a company.
>
> --
> Bj�rn Persson
>
> jor ers @sv ge.
> b n_p son eri nu

Bjorn, I feel the unemployment heat too.  Well, I run my own business
but it seems that all I do is bid on projects and type estimates.  Not
much programming in that.  I do send out the occasional resume (2 per
day) just in case some company somewhere wants to end my self-employment
woes.  Once and a while I get to change the network settings on some
computers for a small business or something and that helps keep me right
above bankruptcy.  It's always something keeping us from our goals.

I can't say that I'm 'vaguely' interested in getting experience, I'm
seeking any experience I can get.  I think what you may mean is that
your vaguely interested in doing work without pay and I can't blame you!
I feel the same.  The business idea has sort of fallen by the way-side
in favor of a credit card for students and a community software
development effort.  Which oddly enough sounds like what we have now???
It's all still very preliminary so your ideas are MOST welcomed!!  Did
you have something in mind?


Andrew

Re: Just Passing By

[Georg Bauhaus]

Andrew Carroll <andrew@carroll-tech.net> wrote:
: Rational?  It's currently written in C, need I say more?

Yes, definitely. Just imagine the following situational parameters:

- TCP/IP networking is currently associated with C in the heads of
  just about everyone you want to convince, right?

- TCP/IP is running the internet, even MS has switched to TCP/IP.

- There is nothing to show, no rationale, no specifics, no programs,
  on sourceforge. O.K., there are no grandiloquent plans either,
  which is good.

- It is not easy to see the idea, it can't be that Ada is so much
  better? Or is it? How, specifically, does it improve existing
  implementations? What will the savings be?

- Is it easier to write networking programs in Ada using AdaBIND instead
  of bindings to existing software? Can C programs use AdaBIND?

Re: Just Passing By

[Ludovic Brenta]

Georg Bauhaus writes:
> Andrew Carroll wrote:
> : Rational?  It's currently written in C, need I say more?
>
> Yes, definitely. Just imagine the following situational parameters:
>
> - TCP/IP networking is currently associated with C in the heads of
>   just about everyone you want to convince, right?

Depends on who we want to convince.  System administrators who need to
run a DNS server don't care what language it is written in.  They care
about the language of the configuration file.

> - TCP/IP is running the internet, even MS has switched to TCP/IP.

TCP/IP is language independent.

> - There is nothing to show, no rationale, no specifics, no programs,
>   on sourceforge. O.K., there are no grandiloquent plans either,
>   which is good.

We're just getting started now.  We are gathering requirements, like
good software engineers ought to do.  Now is the time to influence the
project, if you care to join in.

> - It is not easy to see the idea, it can't be that Ada is so much
>   better? Or is it? How, specifically, does it improve existing
>   implementations? What will the savings be?

As usual: fewer bugs, low maintenance costs.  Also, the configuration
process of BIND is notoriously difficult; perhaps we can improve on
it.  Unless users think it is important to support BIND's
configuration files, I would favour an all-new and simpler
configuration mechanism.  Perhaps an Ada-like configuration language,
or XML, or tables in a relational database.  The design has not
started yet.  Again, if you want to influence the project, speak up!

> - Is it easier to write networking programs in Ada using AdaBIND instead
>   of bindings to existing software? Can C programs use AdaBIND?

I do not know yet whether or not AdaBIND will have a programming
interface.  I only know it will have a network interface identical to
BIND's, and a configuration interface.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Just Passing By

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Andrew Carroll wrote:

...
>>From: Marius Amado Alves <amado.alves@netcabo.pt>
>>Subject: Re: Mneson
>>
>>Andrew Carroll wrote:
...
>>>I have an idea.  I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
>>>lets form an international company.  [snip]
>>
>>Create an Ada credit card company, where the profits go
>>into promoting the use of Ada. The card must offer
>>competitive rates to be attractive (if they can
>>introduce a Penguin card then..)
>>--
>>Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
>>http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg
> 
> Warren, you are a genius!!  I don't personally care for 'credit' (it's
> too much like usury) but maybe others don't view it that way.  Better
> yet, we could tie in the educational topics here on CLA and come up with
> a card for students.  Students who use C pay 21% interest and students
> who use Ada get an extra 19% off!  Ehh, maybe that's not fair.  Warren,
> can you tell me more about how to start a card?

I wish I could take credit for it, but alas, it has
been done before.

Linus Torvalds was (I think) the first to get a
"Open Sourced" credit card with a Penguin on it.

I know they were trying to get people to sign up
at the Toronto Real World Linux convention (they were
giving away stuffed penguins with each application).
Flipping back through some materials that I kept,
I now can report that it was LinuxFund.org.

I don't know anything about starting such a venture
myself. It might be useful for you to find out about the
LinuxFund.org effort at:

   http://linuxfund.org/

They also post an email address: fund at linuxfund.org

Good luck!
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg

Re: Just Passing By

[I R T]

"Andrew Carroll" <andrew@carroll-tech.net> writes:

>> including a rationale for rewriting BIND.
> Rational?  It's currently written in C, need I say more?

Yes.

Bind works well.

Who is likely to use AdaBIND ?

Why waste time and resources if you are just going to reinvent the wheel ?

Look at Subversion.
They took the idea of CVS and reimplemented it, IMPROVING it markedly along
the way.

If you are just going to do bind in ada, why bother ?

Re: Just Passing By

[Martin Krischik]

I R T wrote:

> "Andrew Carroll" <andrew@carroll-tech.net> writes:
> 
>>> including a rationale for rewriting BIND.
>> Rational?  tweakcurrently written in C, need I say more?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> Bind works well.

Yes Bind starts quite OK on my computer. But it does not do anything. No
matter how many hosts I add to the "database", how much I tweak the
configuration, it just won't do anything apart from starting.

> Who is likely to use AdaBIND ?

I would.

> Why waste time and resources if you are just going to reinvent the wheel ?

Because Bind is extreamly difficult to configure.

With Regards

Martin
-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: Just Passing By

[I R T]

Martin Krischik <krischik@users.sourceforge.net> writes:


> Because Bind is extreamly difficult to configure.

Perhaps you should read the excellent O'Reilly book "Bind and DNS"

Re: Just Passing By

[Ludovic Brenta]

Martin Krischik wrote:
> Yes Bind starts quite OK on my computer. But it does not do anything. No
> matter how many hosts I add to the "database", how much I tweak the
> configuration, it just won't do anything apart from starting.

Of course, you do start BIND in a chroot jail, don't you?  A sysadmin
friend of mine says his logs reveal his BIND servers are constantly
being attacked by robots that look for known root exploits and other
niceties in BIND.  He says, "every good sysadmin knows NEVER to run
BIND outside of a chroot jail".

This alone is a good reason for AdaBIND, methinks.

> > Who is likely to use AdaBIND ?
> 
> I would.

Glad to hear it.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Just Passing By

[Martin Krischik]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> Martin Krischik wrote:
>> Yes Bind starts quite OK on my computer. But it does not do anything. No
>> matter how many hosts I add to the "database", how much I tweak the
>> configuration, it just won't do anything apart from starting.
> 
> Of course, you do start BIND in a chroot jail, don't you?  A sysadmin
> friend of mine says his logs reveal his BIND servers are constantly
> being attacked by robots that look for known root exploits and other
> niceties in BIND.  He says, "every good sysadmin knows NEVER to run
> BIND outside of a chroot jail".

1st) On SuSE chroot is default.
2nd) dns does not get past the firewall - so I hope.

I only installed BIND because I did not want to copy "/etc/hosts" to every
machine. But as I said: It failed miserably.

I got all the other network services running on my SOHO Linux Network. Only
BIND does not cooperate.
 
And reading a x-hundred page book for a hand full of computers seems
overkill.

With Regards

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: Just Passing By

[Marius Amado Alves]

> And reading a x-hundred page book for a hand full of computers seems
> overkill.

What book?

Re: Just Passing By

[Martin Krischik]

Marius Amado Alves wrote:

>> And reading a x-hundred page book for a hand full of computers seems
>> overkill.
> 
> What book?

The book another poster suggested: "O'Reilly book 'Bind and DNS'".

With Regards

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: Just Passing By

[Marius Amado Alves]

> The book another poster suggested: "O'Reilly book 'Bind and DNS'".

Ah, ok. I was hoping an online book that I didn't know about. Back to 
the RFCs...

Re: Just Passing By

[Björn Persson]

Martin Krischik wrote:

> I only installed BIND because I did not want to copy "/etc/hosts" to every
> machine. But as I said: It failed miserably.

Maybe one of the lesser DNS servers would fit your needs better while 
you're waiting for Adabind? One whose name I happen to remember is 
DNSmasq. I think another is called ADNS.

-- 
Björn Persson

jor ers @sv ge.
b n_p son eri nu

Company thoughts

[Björn Persson]

Andrew Carroll wrote:

> I can't say that I'm 'vaguely' interested in getting experience, I'm
> seeking any experience I can get.

Same here. Being unemployed doesn't stop me from programming and learning.

> I think what you may mean is that
> your vaguely interested in doing work without pay and I can't blame you!

Maybe "vaguely" wasn't the right word. I'm interested in anything that 
can get me a job, and if your idea can be made to work it might be an 
opportunity for me to get a job, and therefore I'm interested. It's not 
the same as thinking that your concept is particularly interesting 
compared to other ways of doing business. That's the difference I tried 
to express.

> It's all still very preliminary so your ideas are MOST welcomed!!  Did
> you have something in mind?

I have plenty of ideas for software I'd like to write, or that someone 
ought to write, if that's what you ask about. Whether one could make 
money from them, I don't know. Some of them may already exist 
unbeknownst to me. Some of them are:

· A replacement for atd and crond with more flexible scheduling abilities.

· An XML-based unified configuration file format for programs on 
Unix-like OSes, with accompanying configuration editors.

· A multi-purpose SIP user agent (for two-way and multi-way audio, video 
and text communication). A SIP user agent has to be permanently running 
on the user's home computer, listening for calls from the Internet, so 
it had better not have any buffer overflows, and therefore shouldn't be 
written in C.

-- 
Björn Persson

jor ers @sv ge.
b n_p son eri nu