[pmwiki-users] New Acme recipe...

the Other michael xraysmalevich at gmail.com
Wed Apr 18 10:01:44 CDT 2007


No Hans -- you have not made any claims for ZAP insecurity -- but you
have raised a lot of negative speculation and insinuation very loudly.

As Dan has also done the same positively regarding ZAP, and returned
the negative favor for FOX.

I think PM's point was the same for both of you -- there is no known
hard evidence that either processing engine is secure. Dan, Hans has
some very good points -- there hasn't been a lot of extensive testing
of ZAP. That's not to say that it doesn't work. But it hasn't been
exhaustively tested -- so it cannot be proven to work in all
situations. We know it works in some. That's not conclusive.

Same thing goes for Fox, as far as I know.


Also, Dan -- I think Hans has a good point re: documentation. In-code
docs are nice.
Relying on an external website that may or may not be there 3 years
from now won't help me when I'm trying to understand my code 3 years
from now and the website is gone. Self-documenting code is always the
goal, of course -- and there's only so far one can go. Mirroring key
docs on PmWiki would be good -- Jiri does this for the JITS zap-based
system. There are additional concerns re: mirroring doc-changes from
one site to PmWiki; but I know that if Jiri's site goes down, the docs
are still available at PmWiki.org


Play, nice, boys.

FOX & ZAP both have their unique uses; it's a pity they aren't better
integrated.



-the Other michael
http://www.xradiograph.com/interference
http://www.xradiograph.com/wrottings


On 4/18/07, Ben Stallings <ben at interdependentweb.com> wrote:
> I feel the need to speak up on a couple issues brought up by this thread:
>
> 1) I have found ZAP to be a very useful recipe, though its documentation
> still needs work.  I am using it on three of my production sites and it
> works flawlessly.  Because all three sites are password-protected, I
> can't demonstrate them to the list, but if individuals would like to try
> them out, contact me and I'll send you a password.  The DataPlates demo
> site at http://workscited.net/dataplates is still using last week's
> version of ZAP, but I plan to upgrade it later today and will post a
> follow-up so that you can see that it does, in fact, work as advertised.
>
> 2) I have found Dan to be a pleasure to work with, always responsive to
> questions and suggestions and always positive and constructive in his
> tone.  I admit I was initially reluctant to work with him because he is
> ambitious and has a rhetorical flair, but I can't argue with his
> results: he programs rings around me, and he seems to test his code more
> thoroughly than I do before releasing it.  When I browse through the
> pmwiki-users digests, there are only two people whose posts I always
> read: Pm's and Dan's.
>
> 3) I have achieved far more in the past months by working with Dan and
> ZAP than I could have by creating my own recipe.  I can only imagine how
> great ZAP and Fox would be today if Hans could have stood to cooperate
> with Dan and produce one recipe instead of two.  Forced to choose
> between the two, I have had to ignore Fox, because ZAP does just what I
> need.
>
> 3) I agree with Dan that speculations about the perceived instability of
> ZAP need to be backed up by evidence; otherwise they are libel -- my
> word, not Dan's.  Clearly, the development cycle has been very fast and
> a lot of the syntax has changed, causing some ZAP forms to break.  But a
> broken ZAP form is not nearly as dangerous as you might think; mostly it
> just doesn't do anything.
>
> 4) I applaud the recent name change to Acme.  I think it's a much better
> name than ZAP (or Fox, for that matter).  Personally I would love to see
> the ZAP name phased out as the FASTdata name was, but I realize that
> would create a lot of work for all of us.
>
> 5) Although I was as dismayed and confused as anyone by the sudden name
> change and by Dan's references to writing his own wiki engine, I find
> Hans's allegations about Dan's motives totally inappropriate and
> uncalled for.  It's one thing to ask someone publicly about their
> motives, it's another to publicly accuse someone of having different
> motives from what they have said.  If I were Dan I would be furious at
> Hans right now, and I am very impressed that he has maintained an upbeat
> (if occasionally sarcastic) sense of humor.
>
> So, my two cents: knock if off, Hans.  If you really can't work with
> Dan, by all means make Fox better.  But there's no need to libel either
> him or his work.  His "record" -- both good and bad -- stands for itself
> without your contributions.  --Ben



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