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Slash 2.0 Released 173

Posted by CmdrTaco from the oh-my-god-they-released-bender dept.
After far to much time in development, Slash 2.0.0, previously known as Bender is now released unto the cruel dark world. This code is of course the source that runs Slashdot, however 2.0 is far more advanced then the code you see here, to say nothing of utterly embarassing any other weblog software available for free, and written by us, and codenamed after a cartoon. Plans are already well underway to move Slashdot to the new code base soon enough. The features and fixes are to numerous to mention here but besides scouring the codebase of the evils that I originally devised, it installs easier, is more flexible and customizable, and has a variety of improvements for users and administrators alike. Props have to go out to CaptTofu, Pudge, Krow, Cliff, Jamie and CowboyNeal who all contributed to this code, and also to OSDN who let us all do it.

Update

In response to several comments mentioned so far:

Yes, the abstraction layer is in place for supporting any DB. Only the MySQL has been really tested properly by us, but others say the Postgres version is good, and an Oracle version has been floating around for awhile. Adding other databases is relatively easy. Nobody has any idea which will be fastest.

No there is no built in spell check. It also does not automatically correct my habit of switching to/too then/than around (yes, I know the rules. I just don't care enough to backspace and fix it. Get spell checked news from CNN)

Codenames exist because they're fun. What fun is saying "I'm working on 1.2.7 when you can say "Bite my Shiny Metal Ass".

System requirements are still going to be reasonably high since this is a system designed for a million page views, not the 7 page views that most weblogs get. But if properly configured, it will run on very minimal hardware. Back in the day remember that this code served 800,000 page views a day on a single dual p2 w/ 500 megs of RAM. Today thats practically entry level for a real server.

Some minor moderation changes exist, but most of those will be going into Fry (2.2, the codename for the next release, the version that Slashdot itself will run). The 2.0 release was about giving us a stable platform upon which to build new features, not about significantly altering anything functionally. There are changes, but they aren't huge.

If someone wants a Slashdot Redesign, submit one. If I like it, I'll switch. But believe me, I'm picky. Slash itself is very flexible and can look like pretty much anything you want as many other slash sites on the net have demonstrated.

Slash will have more support for various XML DTDs as they come along, and depending on if we find them interesting or not.

Slash will do just fine on virtual hosts now thanks to clever work by Krow.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slash 2.0 Released More

Slash 2.0 Released

Comments Filter:

  • Re:...but does it work better? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually, it isn't any better.
    After spending what seems like years on this new version, CT eventually decided that it wasn't as good as 1.0, but decided to release it as 2.0 just for kicks.

    Please note the extreme sarcasm in my writing.

  • Windows version (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:26PM (#233846)
    When is the IIS version coming out?
  • This was moderated funny, and it is, but some guys are actually working on it! [sourceforge.net]

    That's right folks, an ASP/SQL Server port of Slash to run on IIS, as if Linux, Apache, and MySQL were somehow inadequate. What in the name of garbanzo beans got into those guys, I'll never quite understand. But they're doing it.

    Thank God it's still in Stage 1 - Planning, which is SourceForge speak for "it will never happen".

    And if that weren't bad enough, These people [sourceforge.net] seem to be doing the same thing except based on an Access database. This is really starting to hurt.

  • Yes indeedy. It works a little better now than it did (mostly in that the sites share the same command line utils, and it is much easier to set up the httpd configs), but the essence is the same as it was. The problem the original poster was addressing was needing daemon processes, which hasn't changed, either.
  • That wasn't the README that is included in the distribution.
  • Slash 2.0 has some support for PostgreSQL, and some people are actively working on it. It really works pretty well under PostgreSQL, I believe, but there are a few kinks to work out.
  • There is nothing psuedo-compiled about the perl code cached in the Apache process. It is compiled code in RAM, just like any other compiled code. Perl is not interpreted in the traditional sense of the word; it is compiled and then executed, on the fly. With mod_perl caching, the compilation happens once, and you're good to go.
  • Yes, polls have always been included with the Slash distribution (since 0.9 anyway).
  • You can change the moderations in Slash yourself. You can add the article read count too, just by changing the templates, I believe. Never tried it, but the data should be available to the template.

    Turning off related links would be trivial, but would require a code change, just to allow the user to save the option. Once the code is there to allow the user to save that option, a slight change to the template is all that is required to enable it.
  • The traffic on slashcode.org can't even be in the same order of magnitude as on slashdot.org.

    Yes, and? Slash 2.0 probably couldn't handle the traffic of Slashdot, though we don't know for sure. That is one of the several reasons Slashdot is not running Slash 2.0.

  • Slash, 1.0 or 2.0, can work fine on a shared system for smallish sites. But it needs to be tuned for it, and that can be difficult if you don't know what you are doing. You'd probably want to lower the template cache (heck, maybe turn off the caching, which would slow it down, but conserve memory), shrink the number of processes for Apache, the number of threads for MySQL, etc.

    Slash 2.2 will likely see a bunch of performance improvements, too, like page caching in RAM.

    Yes, under various scenarios, it will not be very efficient in comparison to some other systems. But most systems won't be as efficient as plain small CGIs, either. Or static HTML.

  • Re:theming? (Score:3)

    by pudge ( 3605 ) <<slashdot> <at> <pudge.net>> on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @07:00PM (#233864) Homepage Journal
    Well, individual users cannot have themes. But you can easily distribute a set of "templates" (see Template Toolkit [template-toolkit.org] for your theme and a site can install them. Pretty much all the layout is controlled through templates, and it is very flexible.
  • Slashdot will never run Slash 2.0. Slashdot will run Slash 2.2. Slash 2.0 was phase one of the rewrite. Now we need to add a few more features and optimize. We do eat our own dogfood, in that Slashcode [slashcode.com] has been running 2.0 (in various forms) for a couple of months now.
  • CaptTofu, Krow, and I are the core coders. Cliff and Jamie and CowboyNeal have helped us out a lot along the way. So have a bunch of other people, some of who are listed in the docs.
  • Points:
    • It's free!
    • It's a damn good weblog, for high-traffic sites.
    • It's the code behind (arguably) the most popular weblog out there. (at least for geeks like us)
    • It's not meant for smaller sites. It's meant to be on it's own server, taking millions of hits, and performing well under pressure.

    Using Slash for a smaller weblog is sortof like using an SUV to transport one person (yourself) a very short distance (two blocks) and back. It's overkill. It's wasteful of resources, and it doesn't really gain you anything.

    Now, if they made a stripped-down veresion of Slash, specifically catered to smaller weblogs, but with a compatible config format, so that when/if the weblog became popular, upgrading was fairly painless - that would be something =)
  • What's the deal with every software project having to come up with a code name for each release.
    • Code names make it clear that the code is under development. If you always refer to it as "Bender", no one is going to mistakenly assume it's a stable release. No pointy haired boss is going to ask to have "Seawolf RedHat" installed on your mission critical server, but he might ask for Linux 2.5.

    • A codename lets you avoid picking a version number. This is more common in commercial software, where you don't know if the next version is going to be 1.4, 2.0, 7.0, or 2000. While marketing bickers over the name, the development team needs something to call it. This is even more useful when you're talking about long term timelines.

    • Humor value. "I am Bender, insert alcohol!" The world needs more reasons to smile.
  • That's not a bug, it's a feature! Seriously, Rob capped it at 50 so people couldn't accumulate 2^16-1 karma points, then post thousands of trolls and goatse.cx links at +1
    --
  • Obviously this wouldn't work for Slashdot, but it would be nice for smaller sites to be able to change the name of the anonymous poster on a per post basis while still having the ability to create accounts (so people without accounts could still post under their name/handle). Most weblogs have one or the other but I don't know of any with both.



    My php-nuke [enterfornone.net] install has this hacked in, but it wasn't done very well.

    --

  • Re:Huh (Score:2)

    by deusx ( 8442 )
    Uhh... if you had quoted that in context , like so:

    [...]to say nothing of utterly embarassing any other weblog software available for free, and written by us, and codenamed after a cartoon [...]

    I think they're talking about VERSION 1.0 OF SLASHCODE ITSELF

    I do hope you were kidding/trolling.

  • Two words (Score:4)

    by kzinti ( 9651 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:08PM (#233874) Homepage Journal
    Plans are already well underway to move Slashdot to the new code base soon enough.

    Two words: Beta site?

    --Jim
  • This code is of course the source that runs Slashdot, however 2.0 is far more advanced then the code you see here, to say nothing of utterly embarassing any other weblog software available for free, and written by us, and codenamed after a cartoon. Plans are already well underway to move Slashdot to the new code base soon enough.

    And a hearty "STFU" to the folks who're always bitching that you don't release the current code fast enough.

    Good job, Taco.

  • In related news.. (Score:4)

    by nebby ( 11637 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:10PM (#233876) Homepage
    Ironically enough, last night I released [half-empty.org] the latest version of Glasscode [half-empty.org]. It's the third release since 1.0 which was announced here on Slashdot a few months ago.

    The FM announcement is here [freshmeat.net].

    For those interested, have fun :)
  • > > With any PHP-based solution, you have to hit the DB every time you want to get anything dynamic.

    > You must not have a clue how slashcode works, or you have never heard of database caching.

    If you are into caching and using Perl, check out the Cache::Cache [sourceforge.net] project on SourceForge. It provides a solid architecture for caching results from databases, middle-tiers, etc., in web applications. I wrote the module as a followup to the File::Cache and IPC::Cache modules. It is in use on a number of high volume sites and seems to be doing rather well. Feedback, suggestions, bug reports, and contributions are always welcome.

  • Because it's fun. peopel liek to have codenames. It lets geeks differentiate themselves from more than just the general populace; codenames separate us even more. It helps establish a little hierarchy within the geek population. Around average people, talking about SCSI, ATM, and kernels make you elite in some twisted fashion. Within the Slashdot crowd, though, everyone knows what you're talking about; you need a new wa of assertign social (mental) dominance. What better way then making something up? The other party is sure to be impressed by your seemingly limitless knowledge.

    Say you're working on Slashcode, and people are like "Okay, cool." Say you're working on a project called bender, and suddenly people are curious about what your project really is.

    So, really, codenames are a way to impress your enemies, confuse your friends, and pay homage to somethign you find nifty all at the same time. yay for bender!

  • the release (Score:5)

    by NMerriam ( 15122 ) <NMerriam@artboy.org> on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:21PM (#233883) Homepage
    Seeing as how (bizarrely enough) slashdot seems to have slashdotted itself, the actual code can be had on sourceforge: here [sourceforge.net]

    ---------------------------------------------

  • Re:Huh (Score:2)

    by Grond ( 15515 )
    Learn to not take things out of context. What he said was:

    "This code is of course the source that runs Slashdot, however 2.0 is far more advanced then the code you see here, to say nothing of utterly embarassing any other weblog software available for free, and written by us, and codenamed after a cartoon." (emphasis mine)

    Geez. Used to be we had trouble with people not reading the articles now they don't even read the damn post.

  • New Interface? (Score:3)

    by RPoet ( 20693 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:29PM (#233886) Journal
    Seeing as Slash 2.0 is codenamed Bender, does it have an all-new "In Your Face" Interface?
    --

  • /.'ed (Score:2)

    by ywwg ( 20925 )
    I guess it's a bad sign when the site with the new code is slashdotted itself
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Slash will do just fine on virtual hosts now thanks to clever work by Krow.

    Erm. Slash has always worked just fine on virtual hosts. Well, maybe not _always_, but it certainly did with version 0.9.3.
    --
  • Well they clearly say slash is designed for a million hits a day. Not really for use when co-hosted with other apps, It swallows all system resources, just like the best games, in order to give itself best advantage when the going gets tough.. Quite valid thing to do.

    I suppose. But then why are they pushing it to anybody who needs a weblog? Performance for low- to medium-volume sites sucks pretty hard. It swallows all the RAM and then still performs worse than Scoop (and even Dope, which, when I ran the aforementioned tests, didn't use any caching whatsoever and wasn't even the least bit optimized).
    --
  • Sheesh, you don't remember when Rob was being called a child-molester every 15 minutes until he released the /. code?

    Yes, I remember that. I'm not talking about him releasing it, but he acts as though it's the weblog to end all weblogs. If it doesn't perform well on smaller sites, it's not. And when somebody comments on the performance, he shouldn't make snappy comments about it not being designed for sites that get 7 hits a day. If this is the case, he should document this fact; it isn't mentioned at all on slashcode.com.

    This 'community' gave him no end of shit for being a hipocrite [sp?] for running an (open source/free software/whatever)-centric site and not releasing the code that runs it.

    No, this community didn't. The same people that bitch and moan about absolutely everything bitched and moaned about that as well.


    --
  • I can't speak as to slashcode's memory usage, but this statement is lamentable. A server process can and should take up as much RAM as it possibly can, so long as it's also capable of releasing parts of that RAM that are going for 'gravy' functionality when other apps need said RAM for core functionality.

    I agree; however, not everyone who would like to run a weblog can dedicate a server to it. Oftentimes Apache has to coexist with other services, and Slashcode just takes over the whole box (RAM-wise). Maybe this is good behavior for a large server, but IMHO not a small one.

    On a semi-related note, you say that a server should be capable of releasing parts of its RAM to other programs... how is a program supposed to know that the RAM it's using is needed for another program? I'm not aware of any functionality in the C library for this type of thing, but I could be wrong. Anybody know?
    --
  • What did you have blockcache set to?

    Actually, I don't know. I didn't tune it for these tests - all the weblogs were pretty much at the stock install settings. Block caching was turned on though.

    Were you using the beta software that's out, or are you speaking with the released 2.0 version?

    The original tests were using the 1.0 release, the test of Bender used a recent beta, but not the release.
    --
  • It's a damn good weblog, for high-traffic sites.

    I never claimed it wasn't, and I didn't mean to knock everybody's hard work on it. It's a fine piece of software (although CmdrTaco's original version was... well... messy before Krow, et al, started work on it, and I certainly would have designed it a bit differently internally.)

    It's not meant for smaller sites. It's meant to be on it's own server, taking millions of hits, and performing well under pressure.

    Right - which is what I'm complaining about :) Since it's designed to handle large sites and doesn't perform well for smaller ones, why don't they make this fact known?

    Now, if they made a stripped-down veresion of Slash, specifically catered to smaller weblogs, but with a compatible config format, so that when/if the weblog became popular, upgrading was fairly painless - that would be something =)

    Yeah, that would be nice, actually. But changing weblogs isn't *that* difficult. It's just a matter of changing the templates for the new weblog to visually match (or at least come close) to the original and the writing a script which SELECTs the old values you want to save from the database and then INSERTs them into the new database. I already have the script written which will convert from Slash (0.9.3) to Scoop.
    --
  • Stop bitching. If you don't like it don't use it.

    There's a difference between "bitching" and "constructive critisism." All I did was post a comment on the RAM usage of Slash, comparing it to a few other weblogs.

    And to reply to the AC who replied to your comment, I don't make money off Smokedot. Do you see any ads?
    --
  • I've been running Slashcode on Smokedot [smokedot.org] for the last year, and I haven't exactly had the best experiences with it. First of all, it's running on a shared, freely hosted server, and Slash consistently uses too much RAM and CPU. I did some informal (very informal) tests on my local network, and here's how that went.

    I installed Slash, Scoop, and Dope [smokedot.org] on virtual hosts on the same httpd. Then I'd stop and start httpd to get a clean server. Then I'd run a script which would request a few thousand pages very quickly and watch the free RAM level - I'd restart apache between tests so Slash wouldn't mess with Scoop's results, etc...

    The box I used for testing was a 600mhz Alpha with 512MB of RAM. The MySQL server was on a different box so it wouldn't skew the results.

    At the beginning of each test there was approximately 300MB free on the box. The Dope test reduced free RAM to about 220MB, Scoop reduced it to about 180MB, and Slash reduced it to about 4MB free (and I'm guessing it would have kept going if there was more RAM for it to play with). This is unacceptable, especially when you consider that Scoop was significanly faster than Slash in my testing. Slash does cache information as .shtml files, which speeds things up (I did the testing against index.pl and article.pl, obviously). But this is an annoying workaround, as the information you see is not necessarily up-to-date with what's in the database.

    Speedwise, Scoop was about 20% faster than Slash, while Dope was about right in the middle.

    This was a test with version 1.0 of Slashcode, and I recently ran he same tests with a recent beta of Bender. I was shocked - not only was it more RAM-hungry than older versions, but it was slower as well! This may be all well and good for a site with tons of resources, like Slashdot, but for smaller sites it's just not a good idea.

    Dope is a work in development, by the way, and it was supposed to replace Slashcode for Smokedot. But since I'm basically just reimplementing Scoop anyway, I'm considering just using Scoop instead and scrapping Dope (hurstdog keeps bugging me to work on Scoop instead).
    --
  • What did you have blockcache set to?

    Was block caching turned on at all?

    Were you using the beta software that's out, or are you speaking with the released 2.0 version?
  • jesus christ dude.....hes giving the source code away...not pushing it on anyone....dont like it dont run it...welcome to the open source 12 ways to slove a problem mentality. God forbid the man thinks his work is alright, and somebody might want to read it.
  • I agree totally...

    The way I see it: If Rob, or anyone else who has such a role in society, can't be bothered to correct known, and rather simple to fix, mistakes - what else is he/she/it not bothering to fix? I'm not saying it's Bad(tm) to have a couple of errors here and there, but being lazy about it does annoy me...

    I mean, if CNN started having a ton of basic spelling/grammar errors, wouldn't readership/viewership/etc. not be as trusting? I don't know about the rest of you, but I would start to feel a little mistrusting... *shrug* Maybe I just feel that public figures should try a little harder sometimes............
  • While I agree that no one should be forced to spell or grammer-check if they don't want to, /. would really benefit from spellchecking as an option. I would love to use it on posts (I hate composing in emacs, vi, what-have-you, and then cutting-and-pasting).

    It's not so much that I want to see Taco or Hemos or Katz or any particular poster spell-check. *I* want to.
  • I'd like to see a version where users can (warning, you're now entering Quark's! Buyer beware) purchase moderator points. I think that mod points are a form of quickly-expiring currency, and since I spend all day selling (or giving away) a currency based on the filthy yellow metal, I'd like to see an exchange market.

    Will this lead to abuse, be imperfect, "censor" the poor, and cause other problems I'm not smart enough to foresee? Yes. I'll admit that. But OTOH the current system of randomly? assigning mod points is sometimes abused, is imperfect, awards NO points to those too poor to be around computers, and probably causes other problems too -- without making a profit for Andover.net.

    I don't particularly care about Andover.net, actually (to see my attitude change 180 degrees, give me some shares) but it would be nice if sites like Fairtunes.com could sell something virtual for my currency (or others). If someone wants to do this and needs a bit of gold to play with, you need only contact me.

    Flame away, mod me down, etc.
    JMR

  • Just think... you could update the fortunes to related quotes...

    "You've had too much to drink... or... too little - I can never remember how it works with you."

    --
  • Taco man, have any changes been made to the way moderating is done or have any other admin-selectable options been added? I posted a comment last weeke and emailed you with its URL for your viewing. I think it might be worth investigating. Maybe a slashcode poll or something. Keep up the great work!

    --

  • I had another idea that I didn't put in that original comment (check my user history). I think there should be a karmaless comment. A comment that can't be modded down at all. For me I'd use it for my replies to moderating or comments that are nothing special; just a note on something. If it's a good note, modding it up is good but it shouldn't be able to be modded down. This allows you to respond to a troll and not be trolled as well. It also allows for you to comment on a troll modding job without suffering the wrath of the same troll or counterpart. For example, I've had a few of my comments be marked as trolls lately (no that's not a hint!) when really they weren't and can't even possibly be taken that way. I replied to make that known and my question to the moderator was trolled as well. There's a fine line between insightful, funny, interesting, and troll. That's my $.02 anyhow.

    --

  • Starting a 0 would be ok but then someone actually that might actually have a reason to see the message won't see it unless they lower their standards a bit. Maybe having a mark that says "A karmaless comment has been attached to this message" or something to that affect. I don't know. Careful thought would have to be given to this before implementing it. An example of getting wrongly modded is here [slashdot.org], the original comment starting this thread. My karma is high enough that I get a +1 bonus just for posting. My message wasn't left at my default karma and was modded down by someone that didn't like it. At least I wasn't marked "troll" (no that's not a hint!). I sure wish Taco man or some /. person would respond to my points. It would be good to have their experienced input on this. Thanks for the comment.

    --

  • Not sure if I like that idea. Sometimes I do that just to see if I've been abused. :) j/k Honestly I never noticed my karma rating until the +1 bonus appeared one day. If it hadn't been for that I never would have noticed. I'm glad I found it though. I didn't care what my karma was before; I just posted comments--if they were modded up, woohoo. Now I actually care about my karma a little bit because it reflects directly upon what I write. I don't feel like posting troll comments because they hurt others' impression of me based on my karma. The quality of my posting has actually gone up; that's a good thing.

    I think the recent story submissions should be put on the user info page. That would be handy I think.

    I would also like to see some sort of comment attached to rejected stories. Sometimes I post a story that I think is worth reading but it gets rejected. Other times I see stories used that are just plain dumb and only generate 79 comments or so (they might be interesting to someone but apparently not alot of people). It doesn't have to be a long comment. A pull-down menu of the most common reasons for rejections would be a great start. Having an "other" option and text field for writing their reasons for rejecting would also be worth it. I've often wondered why a submission was rejected. Did I come off in an arogant way? Did the "trained monkey" reviewing my submission think I should have changed the wording a bit, shorten the submission, or look for a few links to reference? It would be nice to know why a comment was rejected. Feedback (in the form of karma) helped my comment posting. Feedback would surely improve my story submissions as well.

    One last thing that I can think of is I think there should be a karma gift if you story is selected for posting. It's shouldn't be really big. If it was like 20 or 50 every karma whore under the moon would submit everything imagineable in hopes of getting just one story accepted. I think 5 is reasonable. If it's good enough to get posted, you should get something from it. I've had a couple items posted. One was an Ask /. post about Napster and Bandwidth and another was an article but I can't recall what it was.

    Well, that's my $.02. Cheers

    --

  • Well they clearly say slash is designed for a million hits a day. Not really for use when co-hosted with other apps, It swallows all system resources, just like the best games, in order to give itself best advantage when the going gets tough.. Quite valid thing to do.

    Sounds to me like you're trying to squeeze a square peg in a round hole.

    EZ
  • Personally, I'm against the idea of "karmaless comments", if only because trolls will start using them to spam the hell out of slashdot and be able to do it without losing karma. Basically this means that trolls can post at 1 with their logged-in account instead of 0 as AC, thus making the rest of us have to start browsing at a threshold of 2. OTOH, "karmaless comments" might be a good idea if they started at 0; this would allow users to claim ownership of a post (i.e. to defend themselves against a troll) but not allow them to troll into higher scored thresholds.

  • Re:Please add a spelling checker (Score:3)

    by ASCIIMan ( 47627 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @02:45PM (#233919)
    You're forgetting that they probably have to sift through a thousand or so story submissions a day, many of which are probably false/pitching some product or another/etc. so any references probably have to be checked out for the stories that look interesting. Then they have to decide which of those stories that still look interesting actually go on the page. I highly doubt "They have the time". Sure, it only takes a minute or two to spell and grammer check the submissions, etc, but I doubt that there aren't more important things for the slashdot guys to be doing than to be focusing their attention on small spelling details that annoy very few of slashdot's readers.

    If the meaning of a posted story is obvious, yet it has a few small spelling mistakes, who cares?

  • Feature List (Score:5)

    by Monte ( 48723 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:13PM (#233920)
    ...and has a variety of improvements for users and administrators alike

    For example, the new SlashTag &ltgoatsex&gt, which saves you the tedium of having to do all that HREF and HTTP:// stuff.
  • Oh yeah? Well, you should all run VAXBB [omar.org]. It's slow, it's ugly, it only has like four features, and can be installed by a retarded marmoset*. Best of all -- no pesky graphics! ;)

    Good work, dedicated coders.

    -Omar

    *As long as said marmoset is using UNIX Apache, that is...

  • "Yes, I remember that. I'm not talking about him releasing it, but he acts as though it's the weblog to end all weblogs."

    It's called "Pride".
  • ...and an Oracle version has been floating around for awhile...

    Heh. No offense, but something tells me most people running slashcode aren't using Oracle as their backend, unless it's on a *very* internal server,


    --
  • So once this is installed can I change my Name back to "Ungrounded Lightning Rod"?
  • One feature I'd like to see is something that'd make it easier for me to write a script to parse the main page and extract information about the stories there. While RSS XML lets me see story title, I'd like to be able to easily parse a few other things like the date the story was posted (this may be there now, I forget), the number of comments on the story posted so far, and preferrably, the number of comments rated at a certain moderation level.

    That's what *I* see when I go to the main slashdot page. But that's not what RSS gives me and it turns out to be kludgy to write a client tool that does all the right pattern matching for all other slash-based but not slashdot sites.

    Just my $0.02.

    --LP

  • "People like you will never get it" (Score:4)

    by iamsure ( 66666 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @04:42PM (#233926) Homepage
    First, lets tackle your claim. Your argument is that "he should, because it is right".

    That is 100% your *opinion*. Some find the casual nature of this site to be a strength, a drawing point.

    Some would argue that it shows that you can be inarticulate, inaccurate, and "unprofessional", and yet own/run the most powerful and popular nerd portal on the net today.

    "And its not like /. stories are time sensitive". Right, things like Viruses, Worms, Microsoft vulnerabilities, new kernel releases, all have no time sensitivity. None.

    "It literally takes a few seconds".
    That part, sure. How many stories have to go by legal before posting? How many stories do they reject (in previous interviews supposedly anywhere from 50->150 to *one*). How long does he spend coding the next release of slashcode, a story that you COULD be commenting on, as a momentous occasion..?

    You insult him, you attack him, and the simple truth is *YOU* just dont get it.

    A group of geeks brought a single weblog to the top 100 websites *IN THE WORLD*, and you complain about how they do things?

    He answered your comment DIRECTLY in the story. If you want that level of professionalism, GO TO CNN. There is a reason it isnt here. He has *BETTER THINGS TO DO*.

    Whether YOU rank those higher or not doesnt matter one itsy, teeny, little bit.

    If you want that level of professionalism, go build your own weblog, work on it for years, release new versions open source, get millions of readers, AND spell check, AND make a living doing it.

    Until then, get your sorry, offtopic, whiny self out of this bastion of bad spelling and great news.

    Real men code, Real men run websites, all others just CRITICIZE.

    Where is your 2.0 release of code running one of the most popular sites on the net?

    Oh right, you were too busy spending time criticizing. To some, its a matter of pride to code, to run a website. You give off a strong impression of sloppy opinionated rants.

    But thats just my opinion, and I state it as such.
  • You say "Slash reduced it to about 4MB free". Question: how are you measuring "free" memory?

    Are you sure you aren't making the fairly common mistake of misunderstanding how a *nix machine uses memory? The natural state of any *nix machine is to have very little "free" memory: that which is not in use by processes is used to buffer the disk system. For example, the system I am using this very moment has 640M of memory (and that should be enough for anybody ;^) of which 8123K is free. However, most of that memory, 506M to be exact (to 3 significant digits base 10) is being used to buffer the disk system.

    Could it simply be that Slash touches more of the file system, causing the disk cache to consume more otherwise idle memory?

    Or, were you indeed reporting the combined totals of free memory and disk cache memory?

  • Hey, (Score:5)

    by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Thursday May 10, 2001 @01:28AM (#233929) Homepage
    I got your redesign right here [kuro5hin.org]!
    --
  • Some find the casual nature of this site to be a strength, a drawing point.

    Bad spelling/grammar is not casual, it's lazy and unprofessional. It's quite possible to use proper spelling and grammar and still write in a casual manner. I do it all the time.

    I'm sorry, but the idea that it takes too long to correct spelling errors, especially errors that you know exist (Rob says, "yes, I know the rules. I just don't care enough to backspace and fix it') is not believable. The real truth is that the Slashdot editors are too lazy to care.

    All they're doing is making the Slashdot community look bad. If our "spokepeople" can't write proper English, then who's to say any of us can? And if we're all so ignorant and lazy, why should anyone listen to any of us?
    --
    Lord Nimon

  • Please add a spelling checker (Score:5)

    by LordNimon ( 85072 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @01:03PM (#233934)
    It doesn't have to be intrusive, just something that highlights misspelled words during a preview.

    As for that "go to CNN" reference, what is wrong with taking out a couple of seconds to correct errors that you already know? Don't you even have one shred of journalistic integrity? Don't you want the rest of the world to take you more seriously? You spend hours every day working on Slashdot, week after week, and you can't even bother to remember that "a lot" is two words? It's like spending $100K of hard-earned money on a Ferrari, but not bothering to keep it clean.
    --
    Lord Nimon

  • Has anyone started using Slash 2.0 yet? It would be nice to go ahead and see what changes we can see from the interface standpoint. I know most of the changes are in the code, but I am sure there are some changes to the look and feel...

    FoonDog

  • Karma fix? (Score:3)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:45PM (#233938) Homepage
    Will the new slash fix the apparent 50 karma cap?
  • It was because Signal11 had 300 (not an exact figure) karma and was trolling with impunity.

    Words were spoken on irc. Signall11 threatenned to leave a bunch of times and then he did apparently. He posts to kuro5hin.org now mostly...

    It was a sort of bizarre thing to watch.

  • Dude I moderate every time i get pints, which is about every 2 weeks or so. I usually have about 10 or so posts in my qeue (sp?) and despite my bad spelling i always have 50 or 49 Karma points. All you have to do is mod fairly and you wont get marked down in the metamods.

  • Maybe a slashcode poll or something. Keep up the great work!
    Thanks for the idea, macdaddy. I think it would be the best use of the /. poll we've had in a while. I can see it now:

    Best features in SlashCode 2.0:
    1) Remove Karma Cap
    2) Nuke this troll account! [Mod option]
    3) &lt goatsex &gt tag so we don't have to type the HREF and HTTP://
    4) COWBOYNEAL

  • They put that in on purpose, so I doubt they're going to take it out again. Don't ask me what the justification for it is. I'm sure they've got some excuse.

  • Redesign Contest (Score:3)

    by gmag3 ( 121600 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @04:23PM (#233947)
    Why not have a contest where people submit redesigns, the /. staff and/or registered users vote, and the winner's designed gets implemented?
  • Slash reduced it to about 4MB free (and I'm guessing it would have kept going if there was more RAM for it to play with). This is unacceptable,
    I can't speak as to slashcode's memory usage, but this statement is lamentable. A server process can and should take up as much RAM as it possibly can, so long as it's also capable of releasing parts of that RAM that are going for 'gravy' functionality when other apps need said RAM for core functionality.
  • not everyone who would like to run a weblog can dedicate a server to it. Oftentimes Apache has to coexist with other services, and Slashcode just takes over the whole box (RAM-wise).
    At that point, you start needing Quality of Service functionality.

  • Moderation (Score:3)

    by ixache ( 123955 ) on Thursday May 10, 2001 @12:15AM (#233951)
    Here are a few suggestions about moderation:

    Remove the +2 karma bonus. I don't think the quality of the comments justifies it, and it would make a cleaner separation between moderated and non-moderated comments. To the extreme, even the +1 karma bonus could be removed

    In the archived discussions, only >= +1-rated comments are retained, although there are a lot of 0-rated comments which are of the same interest. To solve this, one could remove the karma bonuses (see above), or implement a "final review before archiving" by volunteer moderators.

    Xavier
  • Guess I'll need to patch my sig ... damnit.
  • Ah well, I was already on my way down when I posted that... I've got plenty more Karma where that came from!
    --

  • Re:But:My experiences with Slashcode (Score:4)

    by Fishstick ( 150821 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @02:17PM (#233960) Journal
    You gotta be kidding.

    Why are they pushing it? Sheesh, you don't remember when Rob was being called a child-molester every 15 minutes until he released the /. code?

    This 'community' gave him no end of shit for being a hipocrite [sp?] for running an (open source/free software/whatever)-centric site and not releasing the code that runs it.

    So he released the code and has had his minions working to rewrite it and has now released it to the public.

    Now you are moaning about him 'pushing' it. Give me a freekin break!

    ---

  • Who started that, anyway? I know RedHat and Debian have been doing it for a long time, and my Klingon programming language (yeah, plug; bitchslap me, my karma's maxed out) var'aq has been using it for a while as a form of slavish copycatting.

    /Brian
  • Props have to go out to CaptTofu, Pudge, Krow, Cliff, Jamie and CowboyNeal

    Which one of these people is most responsible for the new SlashCode?

  • I don't know if you can vote on a poll on which you are the option. It's like modding on a story you submitted.

    That reminds me, is the polling system actually included in Slashcode?

  • There is a file available:

    http://slashdot.org/slashdot.xml [slashdot.org]

  • Re:What's the deal? (Score:5)

    by chrae ( 159904 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:31PM (#233967) Homepage

    What's the deal with every software project having to come up with a code name for each release. RedHat 7.1 = Seawolf? Slash 2.0 = Bender? Sagan, BHA? I mean, what's wrong with calling it Slash 2.0 from the start?

    Maybe the code name is to avoid public embarassment. Say for example two Developers are discussing code at dining place, saying "2.0" or other such numbers is sure to catch the ears of those sitting nearby. People will start glancing towards then quickly away, muttering things like "what are those geeks talking about". It can get real ugly.

    They call it Bender so when they talk about it in public, no one knows what they're talking about and no one really knows they're geeks. It's really sneaky when you think about it.

    Of course, thier cover is blown is they start talking with Recursive Acronyms!



    Who ate my pie!
  • http://slashdot.org/slashdot.xml [slashdot.org]

    That gives you everything except the comments. If you want reduced bandwidth on the comments, try light mode.

  • Re:What's the deal? (Score:3)

    by TheFrood ( 163934 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:23PM (#233970) Homepage Journal
    What's the deal with every software project having to come up with a code name for each release. RedHat 7.1 = Seawolf? Slash 2.0 = Bender? Sagan, BHA? I mean, what's wrong with calling it Slash 2.0 from the start?

    Aside from any practical value it may have, it's fun. When you sit down to work on "Slash 2.0", you think of another revision to a piece of software. When you sit down to work on "Bender", you think of a self-centered alcoholic robot, and that makes you smile.

    TheFrood

  • "It's like spending $100K of hard-earned money on a Ferrari, but not bothering to keep it clean."
    Which a lot of geeks do. The simple fact is that if you look at some of the things that Rob has said and written on this subject that no it would appear that he does not care. Others on /. might care, Rob still thinks and acts like it is his page. I for one like it. I like a person who cares more about getting the message across then rules. For example are you going to tell me that if I spell a lot "alot" that you *really* don't understand what I mean? The simple fact is that Rob is not a journalist he is a coder who happens to run a weblog. That is what the "go to CNN" comment was about.

  • So given (Score:3)

    by SquadBoy ( 167263 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:03PM (#233974) Homepage Journal
    that Rob is a Debian fanatic are there debs or any plans to make debs?

  • Re:Huh (Score:3)

    by SquadBoy ( 167263 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:28PM (#233975) Homepage Journal
    "and written by us, and codenamed after a cartoon."
    somehow I doubt that kuro5hin was written by Rob and crew or that is is codenamed after a cartoon. So Rob's statement was %100 right.
    Taking a quote out of context does not work so well when the original is being displayed in the same window and can be cut and pasted into a response. Now go to http://www.m-w.com and look up the word "humor".
  • From CT's article, it sounds like it was a big clean up of code, but will this new /. with the new slashcode look much different?
    /. has needed a facelift for a long time, IMHO.

    Since the site is, ironically, /.'ed inquiring minds want to know about the changes. Especially about moderation and karma changes (did ya remove the cap??).

  • Re:phpnuke is better (Score:5)

    by smack_attack ( 171144 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @02:04PM (#233979) Homepage
    PHP is a great language, but there are a couple minor problems. While PHP is an Apache module, you can't actually write other modules in PHP.

    ahem, yes you can [php.net]

    With any PHP-based solution, you have to hit the DB every time you want to get anything dynamic.

    You must not have a clue how slashcode works, or you have never heard of database caching [dealnews.com].

    Also, psuedo-compiled versions of Perl modules are stored and re-used in Apache. PHP scripts have to be interpreted every time they're accessed. Unless, of course, you use the Zend optimizer, but it is not open source.

    You may also be thinking of the Zend Cache, or the Alternative PHP Cache [communityconnect.com], which is open. You really need to check your facts before you bash on PHP. :)

    ---
  • Will the new slash fix the apparent 50 karma cap? The 50 karma cap, as far as I know, is a line in a config file. It was that in 1.09

    I haven't had time to find where it set in the new system yet.

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • I belive that the SlashCode site itself is running 2.0

    Slash hosting is in the process of setting up a new server with the 2.0 - so we'll need a utility to import from a slash 1.0 setup, not just in the same machine, but migration over a network.

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • If you're still uninitiated, all the 2.x versions of Slashcode are named after characters on Fox's Futurama - gleefully created by the folks who made the Simpsons. (psst - it's a secret)

    So you're a karma whore, eh? For the right price, I'll be a karma pimp...
  • Did you notice the two [sourceforge.net] admins? [sourceforge.net] The great granddaddies of trolling.

  • The simple reason is it is a lot easier on the developers to refer to it by the code name. When you are working on something a lot it gets annoying to have to keep quoting version numbers, the version numbers are easier on people in the outside world but internally it is easier to have a code name. Plus as an extra added bonus coming up with names for stuff is fun, so this way you can do that for every version instead of just the first

  • So.. (Score:2)

    by PHr0D ( 212586 )
    Is it faster?
    --------------------------------------
  • Why does it say this on the slashcode page:

    This is it. No caveats, no -bender tag, no -pre tag, just pure, unadulterated, released code.

    ..And this on the Readme [slashcode.com]:

    This release of Slash is PRERELEASE software. Run at your own risk. There may be bugs, and documentation is not yet finished or wrong. We feel this release is stable for production use, as we use it on http://slashcode.com/, but it may have more problems than one would expect from a final release.

    Is it time to update the readme file?

    OK Ok.. Enough nit-picking - Congratulations.
    --------------------------------------
  • Are ther plans to move Slashdot to using XML in the near-mid future? This could potentially dramatically reduce bandwidth requirements for viewing stories, as the banner and page-formatting codes could potentially be transmitted only once per session, as well as reduce processing for the /. server.

  • Re:Windows version (Score:3)

    by rabtech ( 223758 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @05:15PM (#233995) Homepage
    Actually I am working on getting Bender to run on ActivePerl and talk to a MS SQL database (or rather, the ODBC perl DBD). It is no easy task, let me tell you.

    I originally wanted to write a module to allow it to talk to MS SQL directly, but... well... both it and Sybase use an obscure tabular data format that I really don't have the patience to master right now.

    I really wish Microsoft would releast more than ODBC modules for SQL Server. If they really want to compete with Oracle, they've got to.
    -------
    -- russ

    "You want people to think logically? ACK! Turn in your UID, you traitor!"

  • A bug I hope was fixed... (Score:3)

    by wrinkledshirt ( 228541 ) on Wednesday May 09, 2001 @12:19PM (#233999) Homepage
    Has anyone fixed that bug that automatically gives John Carmack a +5 Informative whenever he talks about anything? Or, at least substituted his name in your string tables with "wrinkledshirt"? Just wondering.
  • I have been a member of .5e [half-empty.org] (half-empty) since I saw it on /. It's a really cool weblog and more like kiro5hin than /. The community there is very helpful and active. The kind of ideas ppl come up with gets pretty far out at times - well worth a visit.

    Just a shame the release is overshadowed by Slashcodes... hmm...

    -Kraft
  • The whole virtues of spell checking aside - implementing it right now probably wouldn't be all that smart anyway. pspell is just now getting going (apsell now requires it) and it has a great interface. I plan to use it on on of my sites - but I can't till I move to RH 7. Why? Aspell/Pspell wont' compile on RH 6 (Aspell won't anyway) At least the latest few version won't. Its a known issue. I went back at least 6 or 7 revisions and finally gave up. Granted my site uses php so I want to use the psepll interface with PHP. But I'm sure similar issues exist with Perl.

    I'd say once pspell and the underlying spell check combo gets more wide spread (ie more folks move to the newer gcc and distros) adding a portable spell check won't be such a big deal and it'll require much less code given the neat functions pspell offers.

    --

  • on first load. It seems slashdot is slashdotted.

    --------------------------------
  • Howdy,

    Take a gander at the new RSS 1.0 syndication support. Slashcode make full use of the format's extensibility framework via Dublin Core and its Slash module [yahoo.com].

    Point your browser at http://slashcode.com/slashcode.rss [slashcode.com] and enjoy!

    To parse the RSS 1.0, simply make use of XML::RSS [cpan.org], the module that generates it within Slashcode in the first place. Rael

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