Re: lynx-dev LYNX: hey, guys: Just what are we gonna *DO*?

[Martin McCormick]

Kirk Reiser writes:
>Well, I am still here..  Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to put
>into a concerted effort.  I saw another guy working on it as well but
>haven't heard anything out of him in a while either.  I can't even
>remember who it was.

        That might have been me.  Last year or so, I started
looking intently at lynx to see what could be done.  I also
admitted that while I do like to program in C and write filters,
etc to automate some of the things we do in my job in our Network
Operations group, I am not a html expert by any remote stretch so
there  are most likely scores of people on this list that are
more knowledgeable than I am in this particular area.

        What I have done so far besides complain about the
ever-shrinking base of still usable sites, is to compile lynx on
a system with the -g flag and then watch it traverse a good link
and then one of our javascript extravaganza links that doesn't
work.

        It looked to me like it would be a lot easier to treat
lynx like a black box and build a filter that turned the
javascript code in to html to avoid having to rework lynx which
does what it does well.

        In other words, I haven't done much because I am still
learning and thinking rather than doing yet.
In other words, nothing much has happened, here.

        One thing I have come to appreciate is that this is a
huge problem that has been created by the use of ECMAscript.

        It is also a moving target.  Every change that is pushed
out for Netscape and I.E. means that lynx will have to be
likewise upgraded.  We basically have all the development
headaches without the large user and developer base to keep it up
to date.  that is something else to think of, also.

        If we figure out what we are gonna *DO*, how will we keep
it up to date so it continues to work?

        I don't mean to discourage anyone, but these are things
to think about.

        We need to figure out a solution that has legs enough to
grow as much as is practical.

        This is as honest an answer as I can come up with for
now.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Network Operations Group

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