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[ Page 14 of 76 ]
From: Walt Mankowski Date: 23:34 on 27 Jul 2007 Subject: Link Parser hate I've been lurking on this list for a while now, and it's well past time I contributed my own rant about hateful software. My day job as a CS grad student has me looking into NLP software. On Wednesday I found an interesting-looking module on CPAN called Lingua::LinkParser which seemed to do more or less what I was looking for, so I figured I'd download it and give it a try. It requires some libraries from CMU, but the site appeared to be down all day. Luckily it was back up yesterday and I was able to download it to take a look. Hate #1 -- the Makefile doesn't have an install target. Hate #2 -- it doesn't create any libraries. It just leaves a bunch of .o files under obj/. But I was happy to see that someone's taken the time to package it up for Debian, so I gave that a try today on a different box. It installed just fine. Now it was time to try out the Perl module. I expanded the tarball and ran "perl Makefile.PL". The first thing it did was ask me to Enter the path to your Link Parser distribution directory: It assumes you've been lazy and just kept everything in the directory that was created when you expanded the Link Parser tarball. Headers, objects, and data all need to be under the same top-level directory. Debian, of course, puts the headers under /usr/include, the objects under /usr/lib, and the data under /usr/share. And of course the Link Parser site was down again most of today. Hate. Walt
From: Peter Pentchev
Date: 13:20 on 26 Jul 2007
Subject: cPanel on RHEL
--FCuugMFkClbJLl1L
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Just one of the little ways, too many to actually list, that cPanel's
"let's just go in and replace all the system with our kludgly workalikes"
policy infuriates me sometimes.
[roam@web ~]> ls -l /usr/sbin/httpd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Apr 18 2006 /usr/sbin/httpd -> /usr/local/apach=
e/bin/apachectl
[roam@web ~]>
Okay, so it's replaced httpd with something... else...
[roam@web ~]> sudo apachectl graceful
apachectl: Configuration syntax error, will not run "graceful":
usage: /usr/sbin/httpd (start|stop|restart|fullstatus|status|graceful|confi=
gtest|help)
start - start httpd
startssl - start httpd with SSL enabled
stop - stop httpd
restart - restart httpd if running by sending a SIGHUP or start if
not running
fullstatus - dump a full status screen; requires lynx and mod_status enabled
status - dump a short status screen; requires lynx and mod_status enabl=
ed
graceful - do a graceful restart by sending a SIGUSR1 or start if not run=
ning
configtest - do a configuration syntax test
help - this screen
[roam@web ~]>
Uhm. Like. Wha?
Just on a whim:
[roam@web ~]> sudo httpd graceful
/usr/sbin/httpd graceful: httpd gracefully restarted
[roam@web ~]>
Okay... fine... or something... but... but... but...
[roam@web ~]> ls -l /usr/sbin/apachectl
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3719 Aug 31 2005 /usr/sbin/apachectl
[roam@web ~]>
This one was not even replaced. Yet it *thinks* it's called "httpd",
and it doesn't want to acknowledge one of the options it has itself
advertised (cue Smylers's recent DenyHosts rant). While the thing
that calls itself "httpd" does apachectl's job Just Fuckin' Fine.
A maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
G'luck,
Peter
--=20
Peter Pentchev roam@xxxxxxx.xxx roam@xxxxx.xx roam@xxxxxxx.xxx
PGP key: http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/roam.key.asc
Key fingerprint FDBA FD79 C26F 3C51 C95E DF9E ED18 B68D 1619 4553
Thit sentence is not self-referential because "thit" is not a word.
--FCuugMFkClbJLl1L
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From: Smylers
Date: 18:36 on 24 Jul 2007
Subject: DenyHosts Locking
# denyhosts.py --daemon
DenyHosts could not obtain lock (pid: 6864)
[Errno 17] File exists: '/var/run/denyhosts.pid'
So let's try:
# denyhosts.py --daemon --unlock
Invalid command line option detected.
Usage: /usr/bin/denyhosts.py [-f logfile | --file=logfile]
[ -c configfile | --config=configfile] [-i | --ignore]
[-n | --noemail] [--purge] [--migrate] [--daemon] [--sync] [--version]
--file: The name of log file to parse
--ignore: Ignore last processed offset (start processing from
beginning)
--noemail: Do not send an email report
--unlock: if lockfile exists, remove it and run as normal
--migrate: migrate your HOSTS_DENY file so that it is suitable for
--purge
--purge: expire entries older than your PURGE_DENY setting
--daemon: run DenyHosts in daemon mode
--sync: run DenyHosts synchronization mode
--version: Prints the version of DenyHosts and exits
Nice touch; when telling me that an option is invalid it's always nice
to see the full usage information displayed, _complete with
documentation of the option that you're telling me doesn't exist_!
Smylers
From: Nicholas Clark Date: 10:44 on 24 Jul 2007 Subject: yum $ sudo yum install solve-halting-problem Loading "installonlyn" plugin Setting up Install Process Setting up repositories Reading repository metadata in from local files Parsing package install arguments Nothing to do Bullshit. Nicholas Clark PS as to why - well, yum is documented as firstly trying to install the package, and if that is not recognised, treat it as a globbing pattern. I infer that if the glob matches nothing, yum treats it as a zero length list, rather than an error condition. Hateful.
From: Mike Beattie Date: 12:27 on 18 Jul 2007 Subject: Citrix. We use citrix at work. As if that's not hate enough. Citrix has its uses, and can be fairly sensible to use under certain circumstances. Sometimes. The client is 'OK', and well, does the job it was meant to do. EXCEPT when you run multiple display adapters on the client machine. Oh my good god the pain. 1) the login window appears over the join in the displays. Half obscured by the 'blank' section of display where one of the displays has a different resolution to the other. 2) The application when openned, opens maximised, across both displays (granted, this is the application, not citrix) 2a) The lower bounds of the *maximised* window is somewhere seemingly randomly halfway up the height of the smaller resolution display. 3) You cannot resize the lower bounds of a non-maximised window below the above point. 3a) You *can* drag the window so that the lower bounds are below this imaginary line, but artifacts start to be left when the window moves, or has others appear over it, etc etc 3b) if you resize the *top* of the window when the lower bounds are below this line, the lower bounds are automatically resized up to this line, leaving aforementioned artifacts. HATE. Pure, unadulterated hate. Also, BES. But not now. Not today. Mike.
From: Jonathan Katz Date: 16:05 on 17 Jul 2007 Subject: Reverse Proxy.. ------=_Part_72267_15176432.1184684713946 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Not quite a software hate, but a hate nonetheless. My employer is in the market for a reverse ssl proxy. Essentially we need to connect to a single endpoint on our network that will then traverse a private frame relay network and connect to a SSL-enabled tn3270 server. The proxy will handle the SSL work so we can connect to it unencrypted. Any ideas on how to skin this cat? I'm thinking something with netcant and openssl... -Jon ------=_Part_72267_15176432.1184684713946 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Not quite a software hate, but a hate nonetheless.<br><br>My employer is in the market for a reverse ssl proxy.<br><br>Essentially we need to connect to a single endpoint on our network that will then traverse a private frame relay network and connect to a SSL-enabled tn3270 server. The proxy will handle the SSL work so we can connect to it unencrypted. <br><br>Any ideas on how to skin this cat?<br><br>I'm thinking something with netcant and openssl...<br><br>-Jon<br clear="all"><br><br> ------=_Part_72267_15176432.1184684713946--
From: Minty Date: 15:29 on 12 Jul 2007 Subject: iterm Func+Shift+PageUp/Down = scroll up/down a line Shift+Func+PageUp/Down = scroll up/down a page What other order dependent modifier keys exist?
From: David King
Date: 19:56 on 11 Jul 2007
Subject: troff
Manpage for Pound:
CONFIGURATION FILE
Each line in the file is considered a complete configuration
directive.
The directives are case-insensitive. Empty lines or lines
starting in
###7m<80><99>####7m<80><99> are ignored. There are three
types of directives: global directives
(they affect the settings for the entire program
instance), listener
directives (they define which requests Pound will listen
for), and ser-
vice directives (they affect only a specific group of requests).
That's a hell of a comment delimiter.
Not many of my lines are likely to begin with
###7m<80><99>####7m<80><99>
From: Yossi Kreinin Date: 12:04 on 10 Jul 2007 Subject: The many kinds of void There's this widely used fucked programming language called C++. The FPL got widely used by falsely claiming to be *almost* compatible to C, among other things. Well, I don't understand what "almost compatible" means. Consider the following (IDIOTIC) code from GL.h: typedef void GLvoid; typedef GLvoid (*GLsomething)(GLvoid); This idiocy is (apparently) legal C. I don't understand why the fuck would anyone want to typedef void (I think void is pretty damn portable), but for some reason lots of libraries do this. Anyway, this is illegal C++ - the bastards decided to only support "void" in the parameters list, but not typedefs to void. Another proof of the superiority of typedefs over #define macros. gcc 4.2 decided to implemented the brain-crippled restriction, so GL.h no longer compiles. A GNU language lawyer has contributed this link to the discussion: http://anubis.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/cwg_closed.html#18 And it's an *error*, not a warning triggered by a -Wfuck-me-harder-again-and-again option. The error message says it all (well, all except what the problem is): /usr/include/GL/glu.h:259: error: '<anonymous>' has incomplete type /usr/include/GL/glu.h:259: error: invalid use of 'GLvoid'
From: Aaron J. Grier Date: 09:31 on 07 Jul 2007 Subject: content management systems part of me likes to make life difficult for myself, insisting on running old hardware until it won't run anymore, and being a grumpy unix curmudgeon in general. I can relate to the insect-ridden shaman described in the unix-hater's handbook. the brave new web 2.0 world is browser based, and it seems to me like yet another set of buzzing flies and stinky poo to deal with. I've gotten used to the existing ones, thanks. I was asked to look into content management systems on behalf of one of my club's members, who is interested in redoing our club's website. his suggestions were drupal, joomla!, and plone. most CMS systems are built with mysql as a backend, which would be fine, except that mysql still doesn't run correctly on the alpha architecture. I don't know if x86-64 is any different, but I get a steady stream of unaligned access warnings, and flat-out refusal of mysqld to run on my NetBSD-running alpha. by contrast, postgres just works. I was ready to kill joomla! straight away since it has an exclamation mark built-in to its name. "... because open source matters". obviously portability doesn't matter to joomla!, which only supports mysql according to the minimum requirements posted at http://help.joomla.org/content/view/34/279/ . plone is built around zope. zope so infuriated a friend of mine a while back that he created http://zope-is-evil-666.idyll.org/ . his experience in this arena easily trumps mine, which is enough to give me pause with any project utilizing zobe, but I figured that his objections had been addressed in the last seven years. however, after reading further, it appears that plone has its own idea of how databases should work, and doesn't use a SQL backend out of the box. http://plone.org/documentation/faq/plone-relational-database thanks, zopers, but I have better things to do than wank in python. this left drupal. drupal's installation was fairly painless: create the database; set up some rewrite rules in apache; go to the magic drupal page; tell drupal where the database is; start plugging away. the fact that I had to configure drupal through the web interface was a warning sign. after poking through web configuration, it hit me... drupal is set up for content management entirely through a web interface. <insert wincing here> can't I just edit some templates for layout out of band, post content from the command line, and have some separation between the input and output stages of my CMS? web input methods are _STILL_ the simplistic hack they always were, and the last thing I want to do is handle content generation WITHIN A WEB BROWSER. I want to view it in a browser, but not generate it there. I'll edit XML, even. drupal does not appear to accomodate. I hate it. I hate all the CMS software I've examined so far. I'd go back to bashing my stones together and dealing with static content, except that I really do want to separate content from presentation and store content in a form which can be indexed in multiple ways. (symlinks in a filesystem are difficult to manage.) I'd love to tag my rants, content, and pictures, see RSS feeds on a single page under my domain, and be able to generate pages based on lookups from a content store. wordpress can bite me too. "drop this tarball in a directory and see what breaks" does not appear to be a good upgrade strategy. (trojanned distributions are also of some concern.) it's almost as if everybody who learns PHP goes through a "let's write a CMS" phase where supplication at the idol of browser is a necessity. fsck the browser. if I actually get around to drafting a requirements list for a CMS, and implementing said system in a compiled language, hell must be a chilly place indeed...
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[ Page 14 of 76 ]
Generated at 10:28 on 16 Apr 2008 by mariachi