Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:52:15 +0100 (CET) From: Danny B.Wikipedia.Danny.B@email.cz Subject: Re: [Toolserver-l] Windows toolserver
I support Windows toolserver. I actually proposed it already pretty long time ago.
Of course, it depends on what will be installed on it, but I guess some SBS package could solve it.
It's not the question of unwilling to learn Unix, but the question of reusability of previous work - if somebody already has something he can can use, he most probably won't want to rewrite it completely in different language.
Eg. I personally have a bunch of stuff written in ASP I could use, as well as standalone scripts in VBS/JS. There are also some useful freeware programs or libraries which could be helpful and I don't know about any Linux alternative to them (not saying it doesn't exist, but simply didn't find it).
Danny B.
I agree with Danny B. If there is a significant chance that making this available would bring new tools from people not otherwise inclined, or even from people who have stuff on this platform who already contribute, it's worth evaluating. How to determine whether there are such possible tools? Perhaps a survey or something similar at an appropriate point? But there is a significant body of (client side) tools that use .net already developed (AWB, Huggle and a bunch more), some in fact are among the most popular and powerful tools extant (run Huggle and you'll see what I mean about power and efficiency, it's actually kind of scary how fast you can revert and block vandal activity... and I think many people know how very useful AWB is... I for one swear by it for a large class of tasks) so clearly there are some relevant skills out there.
I also see where Brianna's coming from, in that there are those that might object to providing a facility on such a closed system but I think River's right, we should see if there's a need first before having the religious war :)
Larry Pieniazek Hobby mail: Lar at Miltontrainworks dot com
If C# works will with Linux, I think that Linux is easy enough. Read Huji viewing..
On Feb 7, 2008 12:00 AM, Osama KM osamak.wfm@gmail.com wrote:
If C# works will with Linux, I think that Linux is easy enough. Read Huji viewing..
IIRC, things like communication over the web (in this context, things like making API queries to the live sites, etc) are much better in .NET 2.0, which Mono is not so good at yet. I haven't checked whether the web libraries are supported in Mono in a while though, so there could be better support added since then.
Hi,
I wrote a nice reply to this on my phone whilst bored on the bus, but then it failed to send, somehow managing to get a 404 error. :( Thanks google!
Stephen Bain wrote:
On Feb 7, 2008 12:00 AM, Osama KM osamak.wfm@gmail.com wrote:
If C# works will with Linux, I think that Linux is easy enough. Read Huji viewing..
IIRC, things like communication over the web (in this context, things like making API queries to the live sites, etc) are much better in .NET 2.0, which Mono is not so good at yet. I haven't checked whether the web libraries are supported in Mono in a while though, so there could be better support added since then.
Sys.Web 2.0 in Mono is fully (as far as I can see, having written several .NET based bots) supported. The only Web problem at the moment is that the WebBrowser control hasn't yet been implemented into Sys.Win.Forms on Mono, but that doesn't affect toolserver use at all (that control is used in GUIs).
The only problem with Mono on the toolserver is an apparent lack of some DLLs in the GAC. Working versions of these modules are distributed by the Mono project, so I think it would be very worthwile for a sysadmin to put them in place (a workaround at the moment is to drag the DLLs out of your local Mono installation and upload them to the toolserver in the same directory as your executable).
Having noted that Mono is good for anything except Web GUIs, I'd say that the current toolserver is suitable for purpose given that most .NET bots other than AWB and the like are console based. The most valid use for a Windows toolserver would simply be for AWB, but my feeling is that program is best run from a local system (partially because it does like RAM (but getting better!)). Where the speed of the toolserver's connection is desirable, pywikipedia is just as good, if not better, than AWB for rapid editing.
Overall, I don't think there's a great enough neccessity to make the outlay for a new system with Windows.
Thanks,
Martin
One thing to keep in mind though, though, is that almost all of the .NET-based tools like AWB, Huggle, and such are GUI-based - they'd be a bit awkward to run on a toolserver. They _could_ be rewritten to run unattended/via the command line/ASP.NET... but then they'd probably run unaltered on the Linux toolserver already via Mono. :)
-Krimpet
On Wed, 2008-02-06 at 07:19 -0500, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:52:15 +0100 (CET) From: Danny B.Wikipedia.Danny.B@email.cz Subject: Re: [Toolserver-l] Windows toolserver
I support Windows toolserver. I actually proposed it already pretty long time ago.
Of course, it depends on what will be installed on it, but I guess some SBS package could solve it.
It's not the question of unwilling to learn Unix, but the question of reusability of previous work - if somebody already has something he can can use, he most probably won't want to rewrite it completely in different language.
Eg. I personally have a bunch of stuff written in ASP I could use, as well as standalone scripts in VBS/JS. There are also some useful freeware programs or libraries which could be helpful and I don't know about any Linux alternative to them (not saying it doesn't exist, but simply didn't find it).
Danny B.
I agree with Danny B. If there is a significant chance that making this available would bring new tools from people not otherwise inclined, or even from people who have stuff on this platform who already contribute, it's worth evaluating. How to determine whether there are such possible tools? Perhaps a survey or something similar at an appropriate point? But there is a significant body of (client side) tools that use .net already developed (AWB, Huggle and a bunch more), some in fact are among the most popular and powerful tools extant (run Huggle and you'll see what I mean about power and efficiency, it's actually kind of scary how fast you can revert and block vandal activity... and I think many people know how very useful AWB is... I for one swear by it for a large class of tasks) so clearly there are some relevant skills out there.
I also see where Brianna's coming from, in that there are those that might object to providing a facility on such a closed system but I think River's right, we should see if there's a need first before having the religious war :)
Larry Pieniazek Hobby mail: Lar at Miltontrainworks dot com
Toolserver-l mailing list Toolserver-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/toolserver-l
-----Original Message----- From: Francine R [mailto:francine@nutmeg.ws] Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 9:34 AM To: lar@miltontrainworks.com; toolserver-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Toolserver-l] Windows toolserver
One thing to keep in mind though, though, is that almost all of the .NET-based tools like AWB, Huggle, and such are GUI-based - they'd be a bit awkward to run on a toolserver. They _could_ be rewritten to run unattended/via the command line/ASP.NET... but then they'd probably run unaltered on the Linux toolserver already via Mono. :)
-Krimpet
Absolutely. I'm *not* implying that we want to host Huggle there or AWB there or whatever... very non starter technically (and very unnecessary, they run fine as clients). I am merely saying there is a body of expertise out there familiar with using .net to do wiki related things, that's all. Talking to those authors (and people who have written plugins for them and the like, or who have written .net extensions that make things easier, ala how mediawiki.pm makes life easier for perl toolsmiths) about interest in a windows toolserver might be a good thing to do...
Larry Pieniazek Hobby mail: Lar at Miltontrainworks dot com
windows sucks as a server for more than one person (mean many users, not connections to a web server for instance).
and as said, nothing is worth running on windows that cannot be done on linux.
Mohamed Magdy schrieb:
windows sucks as a server for more than one person (mean many users, not connections to a web server for instance).
For the latter problem there exist a lot of hacks, for example XP-AntiSpy can remove the 10 connections limit.
Marco
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