Dear List,
Could someone please explain to me why I have gone from "pleased as
punch" to hanging my head whenever anyone asks about the e-mail pages?
It's not because I didn't do good work. I *did* do good work, and the
pages are really nice as far as I'm concerned.
But the problem is that people sometimes forget that very little is ever
done from scratch, and most new things are built upon the work of the
many skilled and talented people who have put their talents and efforts
into a long line of projects.
It all started with me wanting to be able to easily access an e-mail
address list when I am sending, forwarding, CCing mail. I didn't like
the 'hotlist' concept because it linked right back into a blank screen
.. it was worthless for forwarding or CCing. I knew what was needed had
to be in Arachne already. I could see what Arachne could do, but I
didn't understand it so couldn't get anywhere on my own.
Finally I griped one time too many for Glenn and he made the first
modification, putting a new TEXTAREA into the html-like [I say like
because it has functions html doesn't] code of the 'reply' page. I
liked it, big time! But it wasn't quite good enough yet, so I had to
ask Glenn how to do this and that and the other thing. I'd never even
used a clipboard until Glenn told me I'd have to use Arachne's if I
wanted to do what I said I wanted. I didn't realize, until he told me,
that I could save any TEXTAREA within Arachne to a file of my choice
with CTRL-W. If he hadn't pointed out the things which Arachne has
already working, the things I wasn't familiar with, I would never have
been able to figure out how to make the modifications FULLY functional.
I put the pieces together. But if Arachne hadn't had the pieces in the
first place, if Glenn hadn't pointed the way and answered my "dumb
questions," the new pages would never have been made. Even now Glenn is
working on further modifications -- he's very good at dgi which I still
can't quite understand.
As much as some people might wish otherwise, for the past couple of
years Arachne has been quite a group project. Much of the work is being
done by just one or two people, but the ideas -- even BAD ideas are
helpful once they are proved unworkable -- have come from lots of
people.
Yes, I wrote new htp & ah files. They do precisely what I want them to
do for me. I think they do what a lot of other people would like.
They're free for the asking. You can thank me for them if you like
them.
But remember please -- so I don't feel like Bill Gates sneaking in
the back door and using someone else hardwork to make his software run
and then putting the other guys outta business through advertising --
all I did was work with what was there and what was shared, and I could
never have done it on my own without people getting me started, pointing
me in the right direction, and putting up with my questions.
l.d.
P.S. I still haven't figured out how to upload files reliably to
Angelfire, so the pages are not yet available for d/l. They are,
however, relatively small when zipped and mimed so can be attached to
mail if anyone wants to see them for themselves.
--
-- "I need not like the company I keep, if that company helps me
attain my own personal goals and does me no harm." anon.
--
-- Arachne V1.61, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
