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LYNX-DEV Re: Lynx interview? [My answers]


From: Rob Partington
Subject: LYNX-DEV Re: Lynx interview? [My answers]
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 10:14:39 +0000 (GMT)

Ok, this was done in a bit of a rush, but I hope the answers are all basically
correct.  Please flame me to the seven hells and back if I've really screwed
anything up...  (And for Al Gilman, I did mention "Virtual Teams" in the
collaboration section - it got sent as an addendum).

Please no horse heads, I only rent my flat...

> Jeffrey Veen wrote:
> > 
> > Great! I, too, would prefer an email interview. I've included the questions
> > below. You don't need to answer much more than a paragraph each; we keep
> > our articles in the 500 word range (this is the Web, after all... ;) We
> > aren't a strictly technical publication, so feel free to write in a
> > conversational, personal tone. Also, a brief bio -- just a couple sentences
> > -- would help me when writing an introduction.
> > 
> > I just found out from my editor that we're under a tighter deadline than I
> > had anticipated due to the Thanksgiving holidays here next week. If you
> > could send me back answers by the end of your day Monday, I could run this
> > as the next column. If not, just let me know by then and we'll hold off for
> > a week.
> > 
> > I'll keep your answers in tact, with the only changes being from our copy
> > editors. If you'd like any links included in your answers, just add the
> > markup.
> > 
> > Thanks again.  -j
> > 
> 
> 
> Bio: I'm 25, single ;-), graduated BSc(Hons) Computer Science from
> Manchester University in 1995, currently system administrator/engineer
> at Netlink Internet Services Ltd (http://www.netlink.co.uk/) who sponsor
> the Lynx Browser homepage (http://lynx.browser.org/) and allow me time
> to work on Lynx, hobbies include bike riding, hacking (in the old sense),
> archery, and reading books about vampires...
> 
> > Could you give us a little history of the Lynx project, and how you got
> > involved?
> 
> Lynx was started as a campus-wide information service at the University
> of Kansas and was then converted to the WWW formats.  Foteos Macrides
> ported it to VMS; his development began to outpace the UofK efforts and
> they imported 2.3.8-FM as 2.4.0.  The first extramural release was 2.5
> in September 1995.  My own involvement came about in the middle of 1995.
> I downloaded 2.4.2 and did a little hacking to get it to understand
> <center>.  I mailed the lynx-dev mailing list about this and was
> pointed to 2.4.2-FM which already had this and many more enhancements.
> Since Lynx was the only effective way I had of browsing the web, I
> started to play with the code to make my browsing easier.  After some
> industrial strength hacking this summer to get my styles-patch working,
> when Fote decided to take a rest, he nominated me as the `coordinator'
> of Lynx development.  Fearing the wrath of Lynx users everywhere, I had
> to accept.  ;-)
> 
> > It sounds like a truely collabrative project. How do you keep such a mass
> > of work organized?
> 
> Mainly through Fote up until recently.  Now it's becoming more team
> based.  Someone posts a patch and people try it.  If it works and people
> generally accept it, it stands a good chance of being integrated into
> the main distribution.  It's slightly better this way because more
> people are learning more about the code set; distribution of knowledge
> is a Good Thing.
> 
> > In this era of browser wars and intense, web-based multimedia, what's your
> > motivation to continue a text-only browser?
> > 
> >         [note: I'm interested in your thoughts on access for the disabled,
> > too, if it fits here.]
> 
> Hubris, laziness and impatience.  ;-)  I'm too lazy to "browse the web"
> as a pastime, so when I do, I want it to be as fast and easy as
> possible.  My first large patch for Lynx was to colour the links on a
> page differently, mainly because it made it easier for me to see what I
> was doing.  It's also good that by doing this, we're helping people to
> get access to the web (indeed, there was a big thread recently about how
> best to represent certain constructs on the screen to make it easier for
> screen reader programs.)
> 
> > Any tips for Web authors? How can we ensure our pages are Lynx-friendly?
> 
> Write correct, degradeable HTML.  Don't rely on `cool' browser tricks
> that end up obscuring the information provided.  Be considerate of other
> users.  Take a look at the Extremely Lynx pages at <URL:
> http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx.html > for a wealth of information about
> Lynx and being Lynx-friendly.
> 
> > Will Lynx ever handle things like Tables and Frames? Can you see possible
> > text-only solutions to future technologies like Cascading Stylesheets,
> > Regions, or Dynamic HTML?
> 
> Well, Lynx already handles Tables and Frames, just not as well as it
> could.  The problem with tables is that supporting them fully would
> require quite a large rewrite of the internal engine.  Supporting frames
> as framed windows would also require rewriting bits of Lynx's internal
> engine, but not as much as the table support, so that may happen first.
> I'm working on CSS support (you can already specify `styles' for
> individual elements using my patch, class support is almost finished),
> but full CSS support would be a major project which I don't really have
> the time for at the moment.
> 
> > Any other innovations we can look forward to?
> 
> Well, there's plenty of discussion on the mailing list of things we'd
> like to implement.  Current favourites include integration with W3C's
> new WWW library code for HTTP/1.1 support, Unicode and a Win32 version
> for people running Windows.  Integration with the new W3C WWW library
> would be a large step forward, but once again it's a large amount of
> work for people who are volunteers.  We're doing our best...
> 
> =======
> Hope that's enough (and not too much!).
> If you need any more information or anything, please don't hesitate
> to mail me straight back.
> 
> Thanks for the opportunity to promote Lynx on a large scale!  ;-)
> -- 
> Rob Partington / Netlink Cistern Administrator / address@hidden / 25y87d
> -) <URL: http://lynx.browser.org/ > Support freeware browser developers! (-
> "You know about stuff, don't you?" - Darren Foreman, address@hidden
> 


-- 
Rob Partington / Netlink Cistern Administrator / address@hidden / 25y88d
-) <URL: http://lynx.browser.org/ > Support freeware browser developers! (-
"So how do I find out about stuff?" - Darren Foreman, address@hidden
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