home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Columbia Kermit
/
kermit.zip
/
newsgroups
/
misc.20021006-20030409
/
000124_fdc@columbia.edu_Mon Dec 2 14:59:45 EST 2002.msg
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
2020-01-01
|
4KB
|
77 lines
Article: 13905 of comp.protocols.kermit.misc
Path: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu!news.columbia.edu!news-not-for-mail
From: fdc@columbia.edu (Frank da Cruz)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.kermit.misc
Subject: Re: A Letter to the Kermit Community
Date: 2 Dec 2002 14:58:26 -0500
Organization: Columbia University
Lines: 60
Message-ID: <asge12$nf8$1@watsol.cc.columbia.edu>
References: <ascn99$pl1$1@newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu> <8ce22d01.0212021110.77c49d5a@posting.google.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: watsol.cc.columbia.edu
X-Trace: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu 1038859107 10406 128.59.39.139 (2 Dec 2002 19:58:27 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: postmaster@columbia.edu
NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 Dec 2002 19:58:27 GMT
Xref: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu comp.protocols.kermit.misc:13905
In article <8ce22d01.0212021110.77c49d5a@posting.google.com>,
Dan Skinner <JDanSkinner@JDanSkinner.com> wrote:
: jaltman@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Jeffrey Altman)
: wrote in message news:<ascn99$pl1$1@newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu>...
: > 1 December 2002:
: <snip>
: A day that will live in infamy!
: ^^^^
"which" :-)
: I've tried to model my little company's products and services on your
: good example, down to absurdly low prices.
: How can I help you make it work, rather than How can I avoid
: responsibility is a model and a style that will always be in fashion!
:
Good luck. It's nice to know that some people still believe in such
notions, which are largely held to be "legacy, deprecated" concepts long
ago replaced by the more up-to-date "take the money and run".
The best way to keep the old ideas alive is to not be shy about
spreading the word across our wonderful Internet. In Kermit's case,
it's especially important since most people still believe that it hasn't
changed since 1983. "Kermit, oh yeah, I remember that, I used in
college... A nice little toy for its time... What ever happened to it?"
We have a web page to refer people to when they say things like that:
http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/kermit.html
To this day, people cling to incredibly clunky, obscure, and unsafe
methods of doing things (such as automating an FTP session) that would
be perfectly straightforward with C-Kermit or K95. My favorite is when
someone asks how to do something involving recursive directory traversal
in Unix (deleting files, moving them, transferring them, whatever) --
something that can be done in one simple command in Kermit, like:
delete /recursive /before:1-jan-2000 *.txt
The conversation rapidly devolves into heated arguments over the syntax
of "find" and "xargs" versus various Unix versions and shells, and then
over the ensuing week or two into insults and death threats, before it
finally veers off on some tangent, such as English versus metric units
of volume, weight, or mass as applied to bottles of beer.
We need independent Kermit users to pop up on the newsgroups when people
ask "How do I do such-and-such?" and Kermit is the obvious and sensible
answer. Jeff and I do this a lot, but people would pay more attention
if they heard it from a variety of actual users who benefit from it in
real life. Why should they trust us?
Yes, if you post on newsgroups you get spam. I get tons of it. It's
annoying, but that's all. There are many worse things in the world,
starting with unemployment.
"Up with Common Sense!" Our new slogan? It's an inversion of Gracie
Allen's campaign slogan in the 1940 presidential race. (Where is she
now when we need her?)
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/1836/campaign1940.html
- Frank