Message-Id: <9512181633.AA52074@mail.uni-muenster.de>
From: "Oliver Obst" <obsto@uni-muenster.de>
To: medibib-l
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 17:34:39 +0000
Subject: Humor & Interest-group-search
Zur Info, O.Obst
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 10:12:37 CST
From: Thomas Dowling <tdowling@ohiolink.ohiolink.edu>
Subject: Alternate Dr. Internet
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
It's time once again to ask [Alternate] Dr. Internet!
A number of readers have written to ask how I find the ideas for
Alt. Dr. Internet columns. Most of them seem to believe that they
come to me in the middle of the night, and they usually suggest
that I stop eating spicy foods before bedtime.
In fact, like many library operations, I have a detailed plan to
solicit user input, ensuring that my service meets their needs.
Also like many library operations, I inevitably find that it's too
difficult to find actual users, and when I do they always tell me
the wrong things. So then I make it all up myself.
Alt. Dr. Internet is currently the only Internet service with no
up-to-date home page. Appallingly, though, a number of back columns
can be found through the larger web indexes.
1. Where did the major networking technologies come from?
We owe much of our current networking landscape to engineers
in the British Isles. In the early 1970's, for example, the
Dutch computer scientist Anders ten Beys, who was teaching at
Cambridge, brought together some of Britain's most creative
networking specialists in a series of afternoon social gatherings.
The ten Beys Teas generated ideas about physical connectivity
at around the same time as the messaging work carried out by
members of an Oxford literary club, the Tolkien Ring.
Eamonn de Innes, an Irish undergraduate who belonged briefly
to both of these groups, became intrigued with the mechanics
of identifying one specific computer on a very large network.
The de Innes name server, while not perfect, routinely locates
remote hosts with an apparent magical ability that one might--but
shouldn't--call legerdomain.
2. I've been assigned to coordinate our library's new Internet
services. Do I need to know a programming language?
There is no greater misconception today than the idea that you
can manage network services without a strong grasp of a
programming language. In fact, to run your network efficiently,
you will probably need to know several languages.
Of course, when I say that you need to know a language, I don't
for a minute mean that you should burden yourself with the
niggling little details that generate gibberish like:
foreach $key (sort keys(%in)) {
if (($out = $in{$key}) =~ s/\n/<BR>/g) {
$output .= "<DL COMPACT><DT><B>$key</B> is <DD><I>$out</I></DL>";
} else {
$output .= "<B>$key</B> is <I>$out</I><BR>";
}
}
No, what you need to know is the sociology of any particular
language in the techie community, and how to use that to your
advantage. A common example these days is the development of
scripts to process web forms; these scripts are commonly written
in Perl and most techies feel that writing anything other than
C++ is beneath them, making it hard to convince them to write
your script. (Your programmers are all writing distributed
operating systems in C++ in much the same way that all advertising
copy writers have the Great American Novel half-finished at
home.)
The simple solution to this problem is to send them e-mail
saying "Don't worry about it--I can put together something with
a Korn shell script. Can you loan me your Sed and Awk book?"
In most cases, this will get you a well-honed Perl script by
midnight. This works because of your insight into the following
languages:
C++ -- The one true language for real programs (with the
little problem that it doesn't always work and you
might have to go back to C)
Perl -- An acceptable substitute for little jobs beneath your
notice, like those dumb scripts the library is always
asking for.
Ksh -- The wrong tool for the job.
Sed,
Awk -- The wrong tool for ANY job.
Note that you probably do not want your technical folks to
start thinking you really do know a lot about programming
languages. That can lead to embarrassments; they might, for
example, suggest that you handle any future changes to the
script by editing the code yourself. If you sense this is
happening, ask them if they ever write in Pascal.
3. What is Java?
A few years ago, Singapore suddenly developed a reputation as
a developing country that embraced high technology. Other
nations in Southeast Asia, seeing investment dollars going to
Singapore, have tried to follow suit.
The most successful of these attempts is a programming language
developed in Indonesia. "Java" (early test versions were called
"Bali" and "Sumatra") is a platform-independent language,
meaning that it is equally buggy on Macs, PCs, and Unix
workstations. So far, the only practical applications written
in Java are an animated advertisement from the Djakarta Chamber
of Commerce and the Krakatoa virus, which causes your PC to
explode violently if it detects a copy of Microsoft Internet
Explorer. Microsoft has protested this behavior, claiming it
copies its look and feel from the way the Microsoft Network
seeks out and destroys competing WINSOCK.DLL files.
4. Our computing center has expressed some concern about users
spoofing e-mail addresses in Netscape. What does that mean?
Various reports have indicated that Netscape can be set up to
suggest that the user is anyone on the net. Dr. Internet Labs
tested this by getting a copy of the latest beta version of
Netscape, complete with Java support, and installing it on
three different computers. On one, we used our own address.
On the other two, we used the addresses billc@lackof.org and
newtg@gopac.com. The first machine crashed with a GPF message,
the second machine simply froze, and the third machine flashed
a toll-free number onscreen and then froze. This proves that
Netscape works equally well no matter what e-mail address you
enter in the configuration files.
Why are such fake e-mail addresses called spoofs? Well, hackers
being what they are, they usually fall back on the classics:
the spoof Roman names from Monty Python's Life of Brian.
Tune in next time for Ask Dr. Internet--
"I have a master's degree....in Internet!"
**===================================
Dr. Internet, Master of All Knowledge
Benedictine On the Rocks With a Twist
No official connection to Dr. Science
------
You no longer need to download the entire list of lists file to look
for a list on a specific topic. The lists of lists can now be
searched at:
http://catalog.com/vivian/interest-group-search.html
The original plain-text version is still available via anonymous FTP
at:
ftp://sri.com/netinfo/interest-groups.txt
or through e-mail at mail-server@sri.com.
While moving from one mail system to another I have lost many of the
notices that were sent to me over the past several months. If your
listing is incorrect or missing, you can send an update by submitting
the form at:
http://catalog.com/vivian/interest-groups-submit.html
Vivian Neou
http://catalog.com/vivian