its_magic

I don't play a lot of games but one thing I've noticed over the years is that the best games with the best communities are more niche. Like Xonotic for instance. It has a fair number of players; there's always at least one or two servers going in the evening. Everyone is friendly to each other. I've never seen any kind of trash talking in there. Same with other games like Quake etc which are long past their heyday. Wherever the masses are, that's where the toxic assholes are. When they move on, things just get a lot better.

[flagged]

> I'm literally just pointing out the truth

Problem identified.

That's not popular here.

You're harsh but that's OK. There is a lot of truth in what you're saying. I really wish people would quit downvoting everything they disagree with. HN would be 100x better if both the downvote and flag buttons were removed.

To me, a C guy, the focus on garbage collection is a turn-off. I'm aware that D can work without it, but it's unclear how much of the standard library etc works fine with no garbage collection. That hasn't been explained, that I saw at least.

The biggest problem however is the bootstrapping requirement, which is annoyingly difficult or too involved. (See explanation in my other post.)

I had D support in my distro for a while, but regrettably had to remove it. There's just too many problems with this language and how it's packaged and offered to the end user, IMO. It was too much hassle to keep it around.

To get it onto one's system, a bootstrapping step is required. Either building gcc 9 (and only gcc 9) with D support, then using that gcc to bootstrap a later version, or bootstrapping dmd with itself.

In the former case I'm already having to bootstrap Ada onto the system, so D just adds another level of pain. It also doesn't support all the same architectures as other gcc languages.

In the case of dmd, last I checked they just shove a tarball at you containing vague instructions and dead FTP links. Later I think they "updated" this to some kind of fancy script that autodownloads things. Neither is acceptable for my purposes.

I just want a simple tarball containing everything needed with clear instructions, and no auto downloading anything, like at least 90% of other packages provide. Why is this so hard?

Tip: pretend it's still the BBS days and you are distributing your software. How would you do it? That's how you should still do it.

I haven't tried the LLVM D compiler, and at this point quite frankly I don't want to waste any more time with the language, in its current form at least--with apologies to Walter Bright, who is truly a smart and likeable guy. Like I said, it's regrettable.

The only way to revive interest in D is through a well planned rebranding and marketing campaign. I think the technical foundation is pretty sound, but the whole image and presentation needs a major overhaul. I have an idea of how to approach that, were there interest.

The first step would be to revive and update the C/C++ version of the D compiler for gcc so as to remove the bootstrapping requirement and allow the latest D to be built, plus a commitment to keeping this up to date indefinitely. It needs to support all architectures that GCC does.

Next, a rebranding focused on the power of D without garbage collection.

I'm willing to offer ongoing consultation in this area and assistance in the form of distro support and promotion, in exchange for a Broadwell or later Xeon workstation with at least 40 cores. (Approx $350 on Ebay.) That's the cost of entry for me as I have way too much work to do and too few available CPU cycles to process it.

Otherwise, I sincerely wish the D folks best of luck. The language has a lot of good ideas and I trust that Walter knows what he is doing from a technical standpoint. The marketing has not been successful however, sadly.

Ask the guy who was robbed. Maybe he can give you a clue.

In fact theft is always unlawful, no matter what alternate name you give it or how many of your fellow thieves and vampires approve of the crime.

[flagged]

[flagged]

The subject of this conversation is your desire to rob me.

Your perspective is you want to take my hard-earned money and give it to some pothead to sit at home and "do artwork."

My perspective is I'd rather keep my weed money to myself.

And that's exactly what I shall do. Want to fight about it?

Your plans to rob society even more than your ilk already do are selfish, idiotic, and will end in ruin--deservedly so.

I have spoken.

"You're not making a very good case for yourself," says the armed robber.

It's a "he", not a "they", FYI. In case you were considering actually addressing its thoughts, rather than attacking some ridiculous strawman.

In time you will learn the importance of respecting the lives of others.

Jesus Christ didn't like taxation either. He preached that it was theft also. That's one big reason why they murdered him, then sent Paul (aka Saul) along to invent a new 'explanation' of the Parable of the Coin more favorable to the Roman viewpoint.

Regardless of whatever pretense you put on, you are in fact a member of a gang of thieves plotting to rob your next victim, just as Lysander Spooner explained in the 1800s:

  "If any man's money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can (and will) hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists." - Lysander Spooner

  "If taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, an honest dollar in its treasury. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized." - Lysander Spooner

  "The Rothschilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the representatives and agents -- men who never think of lending a shilling to their next-door neighbors for purposes of honest industry, unless upon the most ample security, and at the highest rate of interest -- stand ready at all times to lend money in unlimited amounts to those robbers and murderers who call themselves governments, to be expended in shooting down those who do not submit quietly to being robbed and enslaved." - Lysander Spooner

  "But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." - Lysander Spooner

Hint: We are now in the "raising of the spirits of the dead" phase of prophecy; the above being an example of what is meant by that phrase. You Are Here.

I just checked, and it's confirmed: I am definitely using a web browser. It seems my browser and this site have a different definition of web standards, however.

So exhausting to be surrounded by people with a paranoid, irrational fear of robots, who don't give a shit who they harm in their zeal to lash out and strike the evil bots.

> I would never ever install your distro for this reason alone.

And you are? Completely mystified as to why you'd think I would care. I built this distro for me and my people, not you. That's the whole point. We're getting off this ride.

> Someone has already pointed out that old/deprecated/obsolete software like a telnet client represent tech debt.

Not a subscriber to this religion. There is nothing about new software that inherently makes it safe, and nothing about old software that inherently makes it vulnerable.

New flaws are introduced all the time, and old bugs do get found and fixed.

I can patch old code. I can't guarantee that new code doesn't contain bugs.

The ONLY way to ensure code is flawless is through validation--mathematical proof. When you have devised a proof framework that I can use across my distro, get back to me. At this time you're nowhere near that level, and are therefore unqualified to lecture anyone about security.

> Removing the telnet client was, in part, a recognition that its complementary server was deprecated and unsafe.

Unsafe? On my personal LAN? I think not.

You don't get to just 'deprecate' things that I might need, or want to use for perfectly valid reasons.

That's the entire point of my distro: computing the way I WANT IT, not the way Ubuntu wants it.

> If everyone was transitioned to ssh and nc, [and custom MUD clients], why keep telnet around?

Because it's 172 kilobytes. Contrast with the giant bloated carcass of everything else they shove in there that's oh-so-needed by the herd.

> Any software like this represents tech debt and a support burden for the upstreams and distros which carry them. You have unnecessarily assumed a burden in this way.

I'm a distro maintainer. Hello? Telnet represents ZERO maintenance burden for me. There are no operators standing by on hotlines to "support" any of this. It's a 172 kilobyte utility.

> Furthermore, ask the maintainers of OpenBSD or any hardened OS about attack surfaces. The more software that you cram into the default distribution, the more bundled features an OS or system has, you are multiplying your potential vulnerabilities, your zero-days, and your future CVE/patch updates.

Nobody can magically teleport themselves inside my computer and compromise my telnet client. Nobody is injecting packets into my LAN.

> Especially in the face of growing supply-chain attacks and LLM-automated vulnerability disclosure. Your focus should be on limiting attack surface in every regard.

You're concerned about supply chain attacks, so your mitigation is...doubling down on getting the Latest Updates to everything? Because new code is inherently good.

Telnet has to go--way too risky to keep that around--but KDE/Gnome/systemd/dbus/etc stays?

'traceroute' is useless and dangerous, but let's keep the giant QT framework with its vendored copy of Chromium? (That's QT5 and QT6, each with a vendored Chromium, mind you.)

Chromium, by the way, itself represents tens of gigabytes of code/data now inside its repository, with 'third party' directories vendored three or even four levels deep. But a 72k traceroute utility is likely to be packed with security flaws and should be avoided.

> It is good practice for everyone to uninstall unnecessary apps and software. Whether you use Android, iOS, Mac, Linux, BeOS or Plan9 or Inferno. Do not install and maintain software that you do not use or need. It will come back to bite you.

Completely wrong and misleading theory of security you are proposing here.

I devised this new distro exactly because I was tired of my computing experience being shaped and controlled by clueless kids with intellectually bankrupt arguments and/or wolves in sheeps' clothing.

Because I go long periods of time without internet access, and I don't want to have to "sudo apt install" a fucking thing, ever. Especially not a tiny utility that is all of 172k in size, that I might need for something. Understand?

I want EVERYTHING that I might use installed AT ALL TIMES, FROM DAY ONE, so that I can IMMEDIATELY USE IT when required.

This is only one of many reasons why I abandoned the giant dumpster fire that is mainstream Linux. I do not agree with their idiotic philosophy, on practically every level.

You've now discovered that there are sections of God's Green Earth that you never knew existed! One of many benefits of stepping outside the Matrix for a moment.

I maintain my position that this project is a complete waste of time which exists only due to the abomination that is copyright law. (Without that reason, the author would have easily recognized this project as a waste of time, would he not?)

I continue to assert that it's OK to have such an opinion and to express it freely. I reject your incorrect, selfish, and quite frankly evil belief that I deserve to be censored. Nobody deserves to have their honest opinions be censored, ever, especially in what is allegedly a public discussion forum.

(Except maybe you--since you self-identify as a tyrant. I'm OK with you never being allowed to speak again, if you want to shut me up when I have done nothing wrong.)

There are about ten trillion important projects that need to be done in this world, many of critical, life and death importance. Reimplementing a 20-year old game (due to copyright concerns, of all reasons) is a foolish waste of time no matter how you slice it.

If the guy was collecting Pokemon cards or spent all his time watching sports, or blowing his money on hot rodding, or a thousand other foolish things, I'd post exactly the same advice: Stop wasting your time on useless activities and get serious.

Of course, such a sentiment isn't going to be popular in a forum full of so many young (or not so young) "men" and "women" who spend their entire "lives" inside video games, when they aren't doomscrolling on "their" phone. Lots of escapism and avoidance of reality going on around here. Let's just hate and attack the messenger, that's always a great move.

It's pretty sad we have to keep going back and forth about this. All you had to do is just let me express my opinion and move on. But you just couldn't do that; it was impossible. Now we have a giant "discussion" thread in which you are unsuccessfully attempting to argue with a brick wall, after your censorship attempt failed.

Remember what I said above about the GIANT WASTE OF TIME AND ENERGY that copyright law creates? I wonder how many watts and calories have been burned and lost forever as a result of this thread, in addition to all that has been wasted on this reimplementation of an old game.

Here's some more life wisdom: Just because somebody says something "negative" doesn't mean they're being an asshole. It is permissable to disagree and to express that disagreement. Stop being so thin skinned, perpetually offended at every word that comes out of my mouth. You will not succeed in censoring me. Period.

I am the one doing it better. GNU software is slowly being deprecated on my system, starting with glibc.

Maybe the lesson here is to stop letting the GNU folks do things, if this is what they do. This is only one example of craziness coming out of the GNU camp.

That link goes to a page full of random garbage. No commits there to be seen.

Apparently the owners of that website don't like my choice of user agent, and have decided to punish me accordingly.

> GNU organization

> giant security flaw

Checks out.

Or Windows, for a change!

Ubuntu and derivates removing telnet from the default install, along with other basic tools like traceroute etc, was one of the driving factors toward me creating my own distro. I'm sick of basic stuff being omitted because somebody just decided it's not needed anymore.

I am a descendant of the man called Sequoyah, if it's not obvious. Writing clearly and expressively is not difficult for me. I do it as easily as breathing. If you can't parse my perfectly clear and understandable language, the problem is with you and not me.

I didn't "lash out" at anyone. I simply asked why waste time on this when you can just use the original source code. It's a valid question, isn't it?

It's also a perfectly cromulent place to express my completely valid opinions about the abomination and complete waste of time and energy that is copyright law, isn't it?

So what is the actual problem here, other than your butthurt feelings, that are in fact a personal problem of your own creation and have nothing to do with me? ... Ah, it seems I answered my own question.

Again and again we come back to the root of the problem: Why are you so determined to find some kind of flaw in me and my opinions? Pull the log out of your own eye first.

Why do you hate me so much that you enjoy censoring and shutting me down at every step, preventing me from expressing my valid thoughts? Isn't that abusive behavior of the sort that one expects from a tyrant, not from a supposedly free society?

Is this the paradise you had in mind to create when you genocided my ancestors and drove the survivors from our land? Well, you did not succeed in deporting or killing me. Nor will you silence me.

If you were truly correct in your own opinions, you could easily outargue me. A look at my post history will show at least one or two examples where I admitted the other guy was right when they clearly were. I guess that's considered an amazing superpower these days, since it never, ever happens anymore. No, you'd rather fight LITERALLY TO THE DEATH in some cases rather than allow for an alternate viewpoint.

And you wonder why people all over the world say your nation is corrupt and full of arrogant criminals. Gee, I wonder how they ever came to that conclusion.

You often call yourself "polite society", but you're not really very polite, are you?

Another great question, and another good opportunity to supply you with true facts and deep knowledge of reality. Here we go.

(This is turning into a real educational opportunity, unexpectedly.)

I have never--not once in my entire life--been so mistreated in person as I have been online, here or elsewhere. It simply does not happen, for some reason. At all. Ever.

This is not to say I haven't ever met any of you online abusers in real life; no, statistically speaking, I'm sure you're out there in the crowd somewhere, presumably within earshot when I speak truth. It's just that (for whatever reason) you simply never, ever think to approach me in the same manner as you do here.

(Maybe you can think of one or two good reasons why this is so. I'm sure whatever explanation you reach will be completely self-centered and self-serving, just like your other justifications and rationalizations about everything, which always reach the same conclusion: that I'm wrong, and terrible, and that you're a Good Person, and it's OK for you to just shit all over me.)

Since there is no such thing as downvotes or flags in real life--and since you don't have any actual rebuttal to offer to what I say, in 95% of cases--therefore your only choice (other than listening and, you know, learning) must be to sit quietly and fume in the corner, were you to suffer the indignity of hearing my horrible and unacceptable opinions spoken in the vicinity. So I guess that's what you do.

If you run into me in real life, feel free to speak up and make yourself known next time. Be sure to froth at the mouth as you call me a lunatic and a maniac and so on. Really, the more hatred you launch in my direction, the more success you will surely have. Everyone who hears will be thoroughly impressed at how right you are and how terrible I am.

Excuse me? You seem to have lost track of the topic of conversation. It was that all of your bullshit excuses why sysvinit can't possibly work are just that: bullshit. You have been deceived.

It's a waste of time made necessary ONLY because of copyright law. As I explained.

As is THIS ENTIRE COMMENT THREAD.

And 10,000x other comment threads exactly like it, with you fools arguing back and forth for 300 pages about the subject.

What a complete waste of time and energy. Thanks, copyright law.

For this entire time, my position has been that the people trying to put everything in the cloud were idiots who would come to regret this. Thus explaining my sarcasm. It's time to fire back with both barrels at the dumbasses who rolled their eyes and said I was stupid, wrong, had no idea what I was talking about, blah blah blah. (Same shit they always say about every word that comes out of my mouth. So tiring.)

Laughs in Linux