Comments on: Mathowie updates code March 2003

Mathowie updates code March 2003

mathowie — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 12:20:17 -0800

In an attempt to conserve resources, I've streamlined a good deal of the code for non-members, who should be getting a new flat homepage every five minutes. This shouldn't affect logged in users, but if anyone finds any problems, either post here or email me. I'm going to do the same with MetaTalk in a few minutes.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 12:23:22 -0800

I also kind of stopped supporting Netscape 4 on the home page. Everyone gets the funkified CSS site from now on (it was less processing).

By: GeekAnimator

GeekAnimator — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 12:32:35 -0800

I'll sue! ;)

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 13:00:31 -0800

O please please please don't stop supporting NN4. MetaFilter is the only site I can reliably read from my office (I can't even read my own!), since universities are notoriously slow to upgrade. Can you re-support it for members? Or just me?

If you insist, I suppose I can use lofi, but please don't do the same to MetaTalk.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 13:04:55 -0800

It's just the CSS sidebar on the front page that is displayed, which in NN4, kind of screws up the newest post on MetaFilter.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 13:12:31 -0800

The site seems slightly zippier, so I'm hoping the changes are working out for everyone.

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 13:14:14 -0800

Yup. Screws it up most righteously (at the moment, it covers the first post and a half, and crowds the first two into a narrow column).

By: Yelling At Nothing

Yelling At Nothing — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 13:20:28 -0800

Is the pony finally included in this upgrade?

By: yerfatma

yerfatma — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 13:43:40 -0800

So you're the one, eh gleuschk? At least now I know.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 13:48:32 -0800

Alright, I'll toss the code back in, for you gleuschk

By: riffola

riffola — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 14:07:44 -0800

Matt, could you add a note to the static page, saying that the page is static and will be regenerated every five minutes?

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 14:27:02 -0800

*hugs mathowie*

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 14:28:54 -0800

could you add a note to the static page, saying that the page is static and will be regenerated every five minutes?

Why? It's got a timestamp at the top. I know Slashdot and Kuro5hin do this, and there's no indicator there. I don't think of MetaFilter as much of a breaking news source that it needs more than a refresh every 5 minutes or an indication it's not absolutely live.

I don't see what non-members lose by not knowing what I've already been doing since last year (I just streamlined the code that was already there).

By: rhapsodie

rhapsodie — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 14:33:59 -0800

gleuschk: Netscape 4?
Are you serious?

By: riffola

riffola — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 14:34:50 -0800

Oh ok, didn't see that. Sorry.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 14:57:12 -0800

non-members, who should be getting a new flat homepage every five minutes

Old-timers will remember, with that utterly misplaced fondness that only time can nurture, the days when Skippy still attended to the server with a second-hand screwdriver and a rusty can of Jolt, and the front page was rendered as static whenever something momentous, like a new episode of the Simpsons, happened... ;)

By: y6y6y6

y6y6y6 — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 15:01:52 -0800

"Netscape 4? Are you serious?"

I'm writing web applications for a major fortune 500 company where the company policy is to use Netscape 4. It is bad. Very bad. Beyond bad. The sooner everyone using this piece of crap gets used to the idea that it won't display pages properly, the better.

O please please please stop supporting NN4. We need to kill it. Shoot it in the head.

By: poopy

poopy — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 15:08:59 -0800

i stopped supporting NS4 the day it was released... dead and buried... *wipes dust off hands*

unfortunately i'm in the same pre-diddly-dicament that y6 is in: quite a few of our clients still demand NS4 compliance (while preaching web standards for christs sake!)[/rant]

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 15:26:50 -0800

Talk to the dean, rhapsodie. Then, when your spirit has been crushed utterly, come back and I'll try to explain the tenure system.

By: rhapsodie

rhapsodie — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 17:02:58 -0800

But really, how difficult is it to update your browser? I can see the hassle involved in upgrading all the computers and labs etc. But when it is your office computer? All it takes is a simple (free) download or a disc and a two minute installation.

I knew that people still did use Netscape 4, but I didn't want to really believe it. I would rather prefer to be in denial, thank you.

By: _sirmissalot_

_sirmissalot_ — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 17:21:45 -0800

hey, it's noticeably zippier for me too. kudos, mad props, much love.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 18:05:49 -0800

But really, how difficult is it to update your browser? I can see the hassle involved in upgrading all the computers and labs etc. But when it is your office computer? All it takes is a simple (free) download or a disc and a two minute installation.

I'm going to guess that he's at some university with a psycho over-reactive IT staff that thinks giving users any control over their PCs is a horrible idea, and that they have configured the rights such that you do not have sufficient privileges to install anything on the hard drive.

By: ac

ac — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 18:38:35 -0800

Why don't those durn fool IT people upgrade! My very wealthy town's public library has hundreds of computers and a 100-megabit net connection but is still using NT 4 and Netscape 4. Ugh...

By: dg

dg — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 19:26:50 -0800

a psycho over-reactive IT staff that thinks giving users any control over their PCs is a horrible idea

Anyone who has been involved in administering a network involving either teachers or students (or, god forbid, both), will be nodding their heads and saying "it is a horrible idea, why would you even question that?

By: noether

noether — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 20:02:31 -0800

Another thank you for keeping support for NN4.x. I actually have the reverse situation from gleuschk. I have mozilla at work (although no control over my own desktop, yes I'm in academia). I have NN.bad at home since I haven't updated my linux for a long, long time. Everything works (modulo bad browser), so as soon as I have a spare minute I will update and then be able to ditch Netscape. I promise. But, in the mean time, thanks.

By: taz

taz — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 23:13:27 -0800

NN.bad = "mean time", indeed, noether.

gleuschk, just out of curiosity, what is their reason for using Netscape 4? This really amazes me. And as someone forced to use it, do you find that at least half the pages you look at are a mess... more? less? I want a first-hand account from someone in the trenches!

By: quonsar

quonsar — Fri, 21 Mar 2003 06:14:01 -0800

it hasn't been mentioned in a while, and given the leap in the quantity of posts lately it bears repeating: logged-in members should reduce the number of days posts that appear by default on the front page. matt, would it be hard to change that to regulate the actual number of posts instead of days?

By: liam

liam — Fri, 21 Mar 2003 07:00:02 -0800

If the number of posts each day approaches infinity but the number appearing on the front page remains fixed, the time elapsed since the posting of them will approach zero, as will the number of comments in each thread.

The overburdened MetaFilter will become the same as the early empty MetaFilter. Cacophony will be as silence.

I like it.

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Fri, 21 Mar 2003 07:25:10 -0800

taz, from their point of view it works fine, so there's no reason to upgrade. Have you ever looked at a standard academic web page? You could view that thing with a pinhole camera and it would look the same. But yes, it's essentially unusable for any other purpose.

Most math department IT people are recent students who weren't good enough to go to grad school or go into business for themselves. Or, if they are good enough, they're only sticking around because it's easy money for minimal work.

By: taz

taz — Fri, 21 Mar 2003 10:18:04 -0800

point taken about most academic web pages gleuschk; they look exactly like all the illustrations in the first html book I ever got, 100,000 years ago.

By: o2b

o2b — Fri, 21 Mar 2003 12:52:48 -0800

For those of you trying to get web clients away from NS4:

I wrote this essay in an attempt to help clients understand the issues. It has been successful on some very important projects. Please feel free to use it.

(I apologize for the self-post.)