Not so instantly



  • I was looking for some documentation on Filezilla's fzdefaults.xml config file, and came across this page which purports to be a guide that helps you "instantly" populate an fzdefaults.xml file.

    Apparently, a workflow that involves manually entering all the data in to Excel (though to be fair, it might have been in Excel already), saving it as CSV, loading it into a MySQL table, using some PHP scripts to access the data in the database, outputting the whole thing as a web page, and then manually renaming all the escaped HTML entities that show up counts as "instantly".

    The worst part is that almost any Google search involving "fzdefaults.xml" brings this piece of junk up. You have to wonder how many people have followed that idiot's advice.

    I'm not normally one to link to XKCD, but honestly this is only appropriate.

    Oh, and as for that documentation? It looks like there's none. You just have to manually change values and see how they map to settings; though the XML is somewhat self-explanatory, you just have to guess that servertype #4 is FTP over SSL and authentication type #1 is "normal" authentication.


  • FoxDev

    He forgot the part with the wooden table. It's not a WTF without a wooden table :)



  • @Tacroy said:

    I was looking for some documentation on Filezilla's fzdefaults.xml config file, and came across this page which purports to be a guide that helps you "instantly" populate an fzdefaults.xml file.

    Apparently, a workflow that involves manually entering all the data in to Excel (though to be fair, it might have been in Excel already), saving it as CSV, loading it into a MySQL table, using some PHP scripts to access the data in the database, outputting the whole thing as a web page, and then manually renaming all the escaped HTML entities that show up counts as "instantly".

    The worst part is that almost any Google search involving "fzdefaults.xml" brings this piece of junk up. You have to wonder how many people have followed that idiot's advice.

    I'm not normally one to link to XKCD, but honestly this is only appropriate.

    Oh, and as for that documentation? It looks like there's none. You just have to manually change values and see how they map to settings; though the XML is somewhat self-explanatory, you just have to guess that servertype #4 is FTP over SSL and authentication type #1 is "normal" authentication.

    It all depends on your timescale. On a geologic timescale, it's instant.



  •  @TheGuyThatMade this junk said:

    HTB 2.0 (optional) source code beatifier"

    beatifier

     That is so going to be my new favorite word. The only way this could be more awesome if this was the name of an app that turns everything you say into beatles-songs.

     Also having to use scripts to optimize your XML-code probably means your XML-Editor doesn't work as it should.

    I also love how it's virtually impossible to get a screenshot of Notepad++ from their site, but hey, that's how sourceforge works.

     



  • I quite like this little existential quandary:

    I removed all other columns that may have existed...


  • @fire2k said:

    That is so going to be my new favorite word. The only way this could be more awesome if this was the name of an app that turns everything you say into beatles-songs.

     

    Norwegian wooden table? 



  • @fire2k said:

     @TheGuyThatMade this junk said:

    HTB
    2.0
    (optional) source code beatifier"

    beatifier

     That is so going to be my new favorite word. The only way this could be more awesome if this was the name of an app that turns everything you say into beatles-songs.

    I was thinking more along the lines of "blessed are the PC makers, for they shall be called runners of code" or something like that.



  • @dcardani said:

    @fire2k said:
    @TheGuyThatMade this junk said:
    HTB 2.0 (optional) source code beatifier"

    beatifier

    That is so going to be my new favorite word. The only way this could be more awesome if this was the name of an app that turns everything you say into beatles-songs.
    I was thinking more along the lines of "blessed are the PC makers, for they shall be called runners of code" or something like that.
    What's so special about the cheesemakers? 



  • @fire2k said:

    I also love how it's virtually impossible to get a screenshot of Notepad++ from their site, but hey, that's how sourceforge works.

    Sourceforge works?!



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @fire2k said:
    I also love how it's virtually impossible to get a screenshot of Notepad++ from their site, but hey, that's how sourceforge works.

    Sourceforge works?!

     

     

    In the sense that I don't get what I want. I'd say it's quite sucessfull at that, yes.

    Additionally noone else gets what he wanted, so yay sourceforge?

     

    Btw. does anyone know if they still have this ridicolous menu where you have to choose you're own download server, and for some reason the default server is always in bangladesh or at the exact opposite of the world +/- 2m^2 and runs on 56k?



  •  Nope, you get straight to download now, and I'm not sure how would I go about selecting a different mirror than the one assigned to me.



  • Though I still don't know why sites are so obsessed with going through intermediate pages like this instead of just linking directly to the file.


  • FoxDev

    Load balancing and/or choosing the mirror closest to you, while allowing you to override the choice.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @RaceProUK said:

    Load balancing and/or choosing the mirror closest to you, while allowing you to override the choice.

    You think so? Nothing to do with being yet another opportunity to shove advertising at you?



  • @RaceProUK said:

    Load balancing and/or choosing the mirror closest to you,

    They could just use one of the thousands of content delivery networks that do this automatically with no user interaction.

    @RaceProUK said:

    while allowing you to override the choice.

    That's such an open source-ism. Nobody gives a flying crap about overriding the choice of what server to download from. Seriously, who is that anal?

    "Oh, it gave me a download server in Oregon, but that one time I was in Oregon that ice cream shop totally ripped me off by giving me the wrong change, so I'm going to switch to this download server in Idaho instead!!!"

    Normal people only care about one thing: does the server work? And guess what, all those services I mentioned above will exclude broken servers for you automatically.

    There's a slim but non-zero probability that they're *so* clueless about usability that they think customers actually prefer that arrangement. Since they've demonstrated their cluelessness about usability on virtually every other page on the site. My favorite is how, after you navigate deep into the site, then find out you have to log in to do what you want, the login screen directs you back to the *homepage* instead of the page you came from. And trying to upload an image into a project's bug tracker is such an nightmarish exercise in frustration I either don't even bother to report bugs involving visual quirks, or just link them to the image on my own server and hope they aren't dicks about it not being in the bug tracker.

    There might be a large "we've always done it that way" factor, too, where they implemented this retarded system back in 1998 when nobody had anything better, and they've just never changed it because they're lazy.

    But the real answer is, they do it to shove more advertising in your face.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @RaceProUK said:
    Load balancing and/or choosing the mirror closest to you,

    They could just use one of the thousands of content delivery networks that do this automatically with no user interaction.

    @RaceProUK said:

    while allowing you to override the choice.

    That's such an open source-ism. Nobody gives a flying crap about overriding the choice of what server to download from. Seriously, who is that anal?

    "Oh, it gave me a download server in Oregon, but that one time I was in Oregon that ice cream shop totally ripped me off by giving me the wrong change, so I'm going to switch to this download server in Idaho instead!!!"

    Normal people only care about one thing: does the server work? And guess what, all those services I mentioned above will exclude broken servers for you automatically.

    There's a slim but non-zero probability that they're *so* clueless about usability that they think customers actually prefer that arrangement. Since they've demonstrated their cluelessness about usability on virtually every other page on the site. My favorite is how, after you navigate deep into the site, then find out you have to log in to do what you want, the login screen directs you back to the *homepage* instead of the page you came from. And trying to upload an image into a project's bug tracker is such an nightmarish exercise in frustration I either don't even bother to report bugs involving visual quirks, or just link them to the image on my own server and hope they aren't dicks about it not being in the bug tracker.

    There might be a large "we've always done it that way" factor, too, where they implemented this retarded system back in 1998 when nobody had anything better, and they've just never changed it because they're lazy.

    But the real answer is, they do it to shove more advertising in your face.

    Sourceforge is written and maintained by Linux geeks. Linux is possibly the worst OS on Earth when it comes to usability. Hence, I fail to see why you're surprised that using Sourceforge is painful.



  • Well, true. That doesn't mean I give them a pass, though. Nor the projects that claim to care about usability, but use SourceForge as their bug tracker.

    And I'm mostly upset by the people maintaining that site who are on it every day and yet they just accept it's shitty level of quality. They have zero pride in their work.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    And I'm mostly upset by the people maintaining that site who are on it every day and yet they just accept it's shitty level of quality. They have zero pride in their work.
    Their pride is measured by different metrics.

    The number of webpage redirects you suffer through before getting to the download file isn't among the influential ones.



  • @The_Assimilator said:

    Sourceforge is written and maintained by Linux geeks. Linux is possibly the worst OS on Earth when it comes to usability. Hence, I fail to see why you're surprised that using Sourceforge is painful.

    Gitweb is even geekier and it's still easier to use than Sourceforge.



  • @Xyro said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    And I'm mostly upset by the people maintaining that site who are on it every day and yet they just accept it's shitty level of quality. They have zero pride in their work.
    Their pride is measured by different metrics.

    The number of webpage redirects you suffer through before getting to the download file isn't among the influential ones.

    What are?

    I ask out of genuine curiosity. I already know that I'm incapable of thinking like the typical open source developer, but any insight that would make it easier to communicate with people who honestly believe SourgeForge *isn't* a piece of shit would be appreciated.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    What are?

    I ask out of genuine curiosity. I already know that I'm incapable of thinking like the typical open source developer, but any insight that would make it easier to communicate with people who honestly believe SourgeForge *isn't* a piece of shit would be appreciated.

    0.  Does it work they way it always has since the 90s?
    1.  Do the insert, sysrq, scroll lock, and pause keys work?
    2.  Can it properly be rendered as plaintext on Unix for processing?
    3.  Does it scare away the n00bs who urgently need teh codes?
    3.1  Does it annoy blakeyrat?

    But it's not really THAT terrible, is it?  It's just an extra hop to resolve the mirror.  Lots of download sites do that.  And yes, it's probably mostly to get some advertiser money, ask for a donation, and show off their logo.  If it was a direct download, they would get none of that but still pay for all the bandwidth.  It's a pretty fair tradeoff, in my opinion.

    And plenty of SourceForge sites have screenshots, although I don't know too much about their bug tracker.



  • My favorite thing about Sourceforge is that if you try to download without referrers enabled, you end up in an infinite loop, but copy/pasting the direct download link into something like wget works fine.



  • @Xyro said:

    But it's not really THAT terrible, is it?
     

    It's better than it used to be, but they could at least use 302 Found like sane people if they actually do have a legitimate technical reason to go through an intermediate page. Delayed redirects suck.


    What's Sourceforge's reliability like these days anyway? Back when I hosted projects on it it seemed like every 15 minutes some moron was tripping over the power cord to one of their servers and taking out the entire site...

  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Xyro said:

    It's just an extra hop to resolve the mirror.
    Bollocks. It's extra ad-space.

    @Xyro said:
    Lots of download sites do that. 
    List please. Of those that don't use the extra hop to sell advertising. Please.

    @Xyro said:
    And yes, it's probably mostly to get some advertiser money, ask for a donation,
    and show off their logo.  If it was a direct download, they would get none
    of that but still pay for all the bandwidth.  It's a pretty fair tradeoff,
    in my opinion.
    If the reason for it is to generate more ad-pay, say it is rather than giving the user an essentailly useless choice.



    If Joe User finds $SITE useful, they may subscribe. If $JOE is only there to get one package, they're not going to. Advertising via 'while you wait for your download, buy us!!!!1!!!' message is not, really, going to appeal.



  • Well, you know, they'd like to improve it. It's just that they're using Sourceforge as their bug tracker, and it's so horrible to use that they can never work out which bugs they ought to be prioritising...



  • @PJH said:

    @Xyro said:
    Lots of download sites do that. 
    List please. Of those that don't use the extra hop to sell advertising. Please.
    No, that's what I meant, using the extra hop for advertising. To pay for otherwise free services.  Makes sense to me.



  • @Scarlet Manuka said:

    Well, you know, they'd like to improve it. It's just that they're using Sourceforge as their bug tracker, and it's so horrible to use that they can never work out which bugs they ought to be prioritising...

    Win!



  • @blakeyrat said:

    "Oh, it gave me a download server in Oregon, but that one time I was in Oregon that ice cream shop totally ripped me off by giving me the wrong change, so I'm going to switch to this download server in Idaho instead!!!"
    I used to care when the mirror they typically directed me at was giving me 20kB/s, when every other mirror would let me download with 2MB/s. Though this seems to have gotten better in the last year or so.



  • @fire2k said in Not so instantly:

     @TheGuyThatMade this junk said:

    HTB 2.0 (optional) source code beatifier"

    beatifier

     That is so going to be my new favorite word. The only way this could be more awesome if this was the name of an app that turns everything you say into beatles-songs.

     Also having to use scripts to optimize your XML-code probably means your XML-Editor doesn't work as it should.

    I also love how it's virtually impossible to get a screenshot of Notepad++ from their site, but hey, that's how sourceforge works.

     

    be·at·i·fy
    to declare to have attained the blessedness of heaven and authorize the title "Blessed" and limited public religious honor

    So the beatifier is the Pope.





  • @Vixen said in Not so instantly:

    @jinpa 56f6efb7-eead-4040-b9d1-89bc098da383-image.png

    To favor that which exists over that which does not exist must be a form of bigotry, n'est-ce pas?


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    Holy fuck! It's been so long I had to retreat the entire thread!


  • Considered Harmful

    Goddammit @fbmac!
    Also goddammit @jinpa for not being able to wait ten more months so we'd actually get the 'GODDAMNIT FBMAC' banner.


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