Yo yo.

Well, I just turned 19, which meens I technically have one more year left during which I'll feel a-okay posting on a Teen "PU" message board system. I'm sure after that I'll post here, but it won't be quite the same.

So, I've thought that a more general Amateur Programmers Unite site would be a neat idea since it's a bit more timeless, but I realize that this site could not become APU, and a sister site would only split the number of people posting on the message boards (assuming people even used APU). So, here's an idea I came up with...

Can there be a second site in DevLocus that shares the message board threads for Programming Questions and Suggestions but uses a different layout and has other threads and groups - for APU? I realize the change would be superficial in a way, but does anyone think that's a useful, reasonable and feasible idea?

- taubz

Nice idea, but might be hard to implement.

That sounds like a great idea.

So, it has been the plan to have a non-age-oriented site all along. I don't know about sharing forums; more experienced programmers and total newbies have a way of not getting along at all and fouling up the overall atmosphere. The DevLocus software that I have written completely supports everything you would want for a nother site, using the same usernames but running out of a different category. There are some issues, however. I think everyone has seen how slow this software can be at times. I'm not sure how to handle that. Another point is that a new site would need something(s) special about it to make it worthwhile for people to visit it. I don't really know of any general programming community sites, successful or otherwise, so I don't know if there would be any competition. What sorts of things would you think this site should have?

Well, TPU had nothing but it at least existed. :) I'm honestly not saying we need to make a new successful site, just a non-age-oriented site for us to use.

I'm bumbling around ideas for setting up a free development-oriented shell accounts program, so maybe that could be integrated into it. I'm not sure.

- taubz

I would like an Oracle database license and a system on which to use it :-)

Really, I think maybe we could make a new site another learning project (though it wouldn't really be a learning project, as much as a collaborative project). We could make it something that everyone could be happy with, and no offense Psion, but without you being able to have the final word in any slight disagreement, which can become rather frustrating.

1) In a follow up to what I said before - I was trying to set up ipchains on one of my servers so that shell account users couldn't make outgoing socket connections that could be abusive. I managed to stop all outgoing packets, so now I can't access the server anymore... this project of mine is now on hold indefinitely.

2) I don't see Psion being disagreeable in any way, aside from saying that the goal of TPU is to foster programming, not social relations (re: PSIMinds), which I agree with. And, if Psion says no, there's no stopping anyone from creating their own site - or starting a revolt, again!

- taubz

Maybe you can persuade him.

Persuade me to do what? I wasn't aware that I was holding out against any request at all (at the moment ;P).

how about the one to leave marker on the last
message read in a thread...i can't remember what the last message i read was.....

This software is kind of goofy. I still think the best thing would be to switch to something time-tested. Anyone have opinions on OpenACS?

What's OpenACS? Link?

- taubz

http://www.openacs.org/

Duh...

Taubz.
If you want to block outgoing connections in the OUTPUT chain, you need to allow data out from port 22 or 23 depending on whether you are using SSH/Telnet.

so put your stuff in and do.
ipchains -I input -d 0/0 22 -p tcp -j ACCEPT ; Input rule
ipchains -I output -s 0/0 22 -p tcp -j ACCEPT ; output rule

Thanks
Gaz

Yeah, thanks. I almost had it going until I flushed it or whatever -F is, forgetting that I had set the end of the output rule to REJECT.

- taubz

Psion:
I thought we had agreed to stick with this one... It's good as it is, it's just you have a way of being _very_ final about things that sometimes require further discussion.

gian, that's a function of the fact that I've run TPU sites for circa 4 years, and I don't feel a need to indulge anyone in suggestions that experience suggests would go nowhere or even damage things.

It's described by P(t), the function that determines Psion's seriousness in considering an idea, based on the time t in milliseconds from the current time until the end of life on Earth as we know it. It's logarithmically based on a Fourier arc-inversion.

(Just joking... As I said, I don't feel there's a problem.)

- Taubz