lynx-dev Re: example of thoughtless design

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, Mark Adams wrote:

(on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html)

> "Alan J. Flavell" <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> >In what way specifically?  What did the Lynx supporters say when you
> >reported the bug?  Did you upgrade to the version that they recommended?
> 
> I didn't know that it was my responsibility to report bugs in lynx.

With a volunteer project of this kind it's every user's responsibility
to play their part.

> Lynx 2.8 (not sure what version you're using) has a buggy http_host
> variable. It's doubled. 

Well, just for you I've downloaded the current archive of Lynx 2.8 to
make sure there can be no misunderstanding.  Built it and tested it. 
Here's the relevant lines from the usual report:

HTTP_HOST=ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk
HTTP_USER_AGENT=Lynx/2.8rel.2 libwww-FM/2.14

I see nothing wrong with the Host header here.

> For example, if you visited happy.com, the
> http_host would = "happy.com happy.com" instead of "happy.com".

Maybe I'm having some difficulty in finding the evidence for which
sub-version had this alleged bug, and when it was corrected.

> What is YOUR intention by trying to prove me wrong with
> disinformation?

You asserted this in a way that implied that it would be generally true
of Lynx. It is not generally true of Lynx.  Whether it is true of some
sub-version of 2.8 or not seems to me to be still an open question. It
would be a sufficiently serious bug that I feel sure that as soon as it
was reported, the developers would rush to correct it.  I've seen no
evidence of it other than your allegations, but maybe that's because I
haven't looked hard enough.