Re: lynx-dev lynx2.8.3dev.5

[Heather]

> Re: are we going to add anything that comes along
> 
> I think the move towards features that can be configured in or out is
> a good one.  That allows one to tune a compile appropriate.
> 
> Re: when do features get removed
> 
> I would say when the feature no longer operates, that's the time to remove
> it.  As for gopher - does the code work?  It should stay in if we can
> verify that it works.  

You know it's really strange - last week, I wouldn't have bothered to reply
to this, because I hadn't visited gopher space in years.

Today I used my meta-index (i) page to hunt down something obscure.  So yes,
I wandered into gopher space, and yes, the code seems to work fine.  Not that
I was doing anything terribly exciting.  The page I was at had a "we're no
longer maintaining" note hung on it saying go visit their web page.  But it
had stuff.

(Is there some more extensive way to test gopher than "menus load"?)

Um, if it were missing, I'd have used a gopher client.  No big deal to me.
NS still supports gopher as far as I know - for what that's worth.

> As for news - I vote to keep it in.  As for wais -
> has it been removed yet?  I don't recall.  In all these cases, I would
> say if someone comes along and submits patches to make these protocols
> compile time options, that would be great.
> 
> It seems less than optimal to 'remove' an option that just requires that
> someone spin off a project in parallel to lynx - and removing news would
> require just that.

We begin to face the same problems that Eric Allman has with sendmail; it 
has support for protocols he thinks, even hopes, are gone forever.  When he 
posts that he is considering removing them, its users leap from the woodwork 
at high speed to protest.  The features stay, and sendmail grows...

* Heather