From: gjm5@po.CWRU.Edu (Gregory J. Meyers)
Newsgroups: alt.irc
Subject: Re: Why people care so strongly about IRC (sorry, a bit long)
Date: 13 Dec 1992 18:17:33 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: gjm5@po.CWRU.Edu (Lord Maximilien of Myragorthia)
NNTP-Posting-Host: thor.ins.cwru.edu


     As long as I'm still cheerfully supporting my unpopular opinions, I
thought I'd jump into this discussion too.


In a previous article, frechett@spot.Colorado.EDU (-=Runaway Daemon=-) says:

>My opinions are based on personal experience so your mileage may vary.
>I've had many conversations with people that go something along these lines.
>We get into discussing bots and why I don't care for them.  They happily
>inform me that they used the famous 'botdoc' to implement their bot.  

     This is also how I started writing bots.  That is, for the first week or
so.  After that I was working on ways to implement arrays in IRC script.
Still, without that little nudge I wouldn't have had any idea how to begin.
It was just a stepping-stone, but an important one.

>1. There is nothing in the ircII2.2 help files.  Since I updated over 400
>   help files for ircII2.2 I know they are wrong.

     It amazes me how seldom people read help files--not just for IRC, but
everything.  When I had a VAX account a year back, I took time out to read
page after page of help screens.  People asked me how I was doing what I was
doing.  I told them to read the help screens.

>2. All the scripts suck.   They'll generally maintain this right up until
>   we determine that they don't even know where the scripts are.  Keep in 
>   mind that ircII2.2 has a LOAD_PATH variable showing where the scripts are.

     Only SOME of the scripts suck.  The one I found most valuable was the
recent addition about recursion.  Now there's an idea I would never have
thought of myself.  Who would have thought you could do recursion in IRC
script?  How about that?  It really IS a programming language!  *Grin*

>At this point I'm always happy to give people my pre7-scripts directory which
>comes highly recomended.  I generally get a favorable responce except that th
>still don't want to have to actually WRITE any code.  

     When I wrote the array handling script I was using 2.1.5.  After getting
2.2.7 and realising how similar it was to C code, I churned out some more
modules to do lists.  The language may be interpreted, but that never stopped
BASIC from going anywhere.  It's also great for interfacing with other
(compiled) programs.
     Maybe I'm the exception rather than the rule, but I happen to LIKE
programming, and the IRC is a fascinating environment to run programs in.

>This is where I start to get irritated.  I'm a teacher at heart, and it 
>drives me nuts to find someone who isn't just clueless or ignorant but 
>openly refusing to take responsibility for anything they do if it means they
>have to learn anything.  I see it EVERY day.  I have neither the time nor
>energy to do this with every bot owner out there hoping I'll find someone
>who gives a shit.

     Congratulations!  You have finally met a bot owner who gives a shit!
     In fact, this bot owner gives such a shit that he's considering writing
a better bot.doc--one that would appeal to serious programmers, but be totally
useless to the clueless folk you describe.  In it I would advocate the use of
C code for writing bots, briefly skim through the automatic-response-to-
public-message syndrome (stating how lame it is), and give examples of what I
consider worthy bots, e.g. NickServ and LogicBot--bots that do something
useful and do it well.  I would try to foster creativity, while warning bot
users about the dangers of passing their code along to others *Wider grin*.
     By the way, THIS bot.doc would contain only the bare minimum of code,
not enough to construct a bot from unless you already knew how to program.

>I do not feel it is my responsibility to write an 'example' bot for people
>to copy.  30 well written DaemonBot's is no better than 30 poorly written
>Baloobots.  I don't expect anything more than a little basic competance
>from people.  Unfortunately overwhelming personal experience has shown that
>too many bot owners lack both this competance and any personal responsibility
>for their actions.  Ignorance is not an excuse.

     Unfortunately, what you say is true.  Many bot owners are completely
incompetent.  I cannot, and will not, defend such people.  I am only here on
alt.irc to defend those people who make use of their God-given right to
write bots and employ them.  That other crowd can just go hang.

>       ian
                                                  Lord_Max
                                                  Greg Meyers
                                                  meyers@alpha.ces.cwru.edu