Oh Geez. I'd like to think I'm fairly sophisticated, but some days (when the list isn't clogged about how flawed OpenSRS actually is) I'm fairly in awe at what some of the folks here do on a fairly routine basis. Some of that is because I don't do those things routinely, and I don't really have the tools handy, or I simply recognize the dedication that some people have put into making the truly difficult into something fairly easy.
The OpenSRS API isn't simple (for good reason). It needs to be secure, safe, reliable, etc. .. and the WHOIS protocol is.... so..... not..... complex. I am qualified to make this statement: it is not rocket science. Whois is just about as simple as it can get -- and except for Eric, everyone seems to have missed that point. A real developer would recognize this as a 5 minute project. Applying the standard rule for estimates from software developers, we double the number and go to the next higher unit, and you'd have a polished, finished whois client that works for every TLD possible in about ten hours. .. and you could fix it if it ever breaks. -- Lynn On Mon, 8 Dec 2003 21:18:14 -0500, Colin Viebrock wrote: > > True. However, not everyone has the time/skill-set/desire to maintain > a tool like this. In fact, I bet the reason that there are dozens of > solutions to this problem is because someone, at some point, said "hey, > I can just maintain this myself." How many of those people are going > to tire as well? And who's to say the original poster won't either? > > Anyway, this is kinda off-topic now. Yes, there are many tools to do > this. I was going to suggest jwhois as well, until I noticed someone > else had. And it's a FSF project. Chances are it will be well > maintained. And if it isn't ... you've got the source code. :) > > - Colin
