From: frechett@spot.Colorado.EDU (-=Runaway Daemon=-)
Newsgroups: alt.irc
Subject: Re: Why people care so strongly about IRC (sorry, a bit long)
Date: 12 Dec 92 11:00:21 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder

In article <1gbi2bINNivr@life.ai.mit.edu> gwydion@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Mercenary Programmer) writes:
>Let me ask you a question, Daemon...
>
>Have you ever talked to the bot owners about the
>problems their bots cause?  I'm not being sarcastic;
I have.  I've talked to all too many bot owners.  My views on bots are not
unfounded.  The majority of people I have run across would by happy to fix
their bot if I would write all the code for them.

>but it is obvious you've already made up your mind
>about them.  I'm just wondering why.
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.  Now 
here is a rude, crude, wasteful bot.  I suggest they try writing the bot
in perl.  First question.
"Where can I find a perl bot to look at?"     ie. they don't want to learn
I respond... they resist, I suggest that if they insist on doing it in ircII
that they at least write the code themselves and base it on something a
little more intelligent than 'botdoc'.  Second question.
"Where can I find something else like botdoc then? huh? huh?"
ie. they don't want to learn

I suggest that they look at the scripts that come with the client.  Assuming
they are using ircII2.2pre* which they are more and more these days. (Don't
go on about client versions.)  They tell me:
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.
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.

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 they 
still don't want to have to actually WRITE any code.  

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.

As for why my last post was so sarcastic.  I'm sick of explaining to people
why a given action on irc is not good for the IRCnet or even the Internet
and then getting flamed for taking IRC too seriously.  I can take IRC as
seriously as I damn well please.  I do what I can to help what I percieve 
as the problem.  A few days ago I wrote a script which will come out with
the next client release that implments intelligent auto-channop routines
to minimize the problem with multiple opping of people and the timing 
problem everyone is talking about.  So far for those who can test it the
responce has been overwhelmingly positive.  (It is for 2.2pre8 and beyond
only so far.)

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
Balloobots.  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.


Hope that wasn't too vague for yah.. 
>
>Gwydion.

	ian