Code Sharing Re: Go to checkout only if login is successful

[Birgitt Funk <birgitt@minivend.com>]

******    message to minivend-users from Birgitt Funk <birgitt@minivend.com>     ******


  On Mon, 1 Mar 1999, Barry Treahy wrote:
  
  > ******    message to minivend-users from Barry Treahy
    <treahy@mmaz.com>     ******
  
> Listen Chris, as a member of this list for roughly 6 months, the
> culture  of this list is hard to understand.  I belong to other lists
> for VMS, Unix, Linux, Roxen, etc. where a question is posted and an
> answer comes back, even if wrong, its a best attempt.  I have
> asked, and asked, and asked questions on this list and it is real easy to
> assume they entered the bit-bucket.  I see numerous others doing
> the same, again no answers which prompted me to a comment/request weeks
> ago that solutions get posted along with the original question to
> accomplish exactly what you mentioned.  That too, went without comment.
>
> Other lists that I work with, if someone has an answer, they
> cross-post to the specific person and back to the list.  I see very little of
> that here.  Additionally, if someone is interested in a solution that
> seems to be difficult to resolve, those of interest mail the
> original requestor asking for a summary of the solution in the event an
> answer is provided in private, and I've seem very little of that, and I
> have received no outside interest in this particular problem or ANY
> other posting that I have made.
>  
> 

I can't resist to comment. I have been reading this list since
the first day. Being no real system administrator, nor programmer, I
would say, I hoped to learn from this list a lot. If you do think that
nowadays the list doesn't provide a lot of help, you should have seen its
beginnings.
  
It was obvious then, that help was given amoung the experts by good
will mostly in private email, not necessarily back to the list.

It has become much better in the last eight months or so, but with
many new features, there might not be as many people out there who really
can answer them.

> One can only assume that I'm either attempting something so strange
> that everyone else just shakes there head wondering what rock I
> crawled from under, or perhaps everyone that is experienced is so swamped
> that they can't help.
>  
>  

I asked myself the same question, but came to different conclusions.
I am amused to find myself with less illusions looking at the role
of this mailing list, as the old guard in the ISP/website hosting
community.

  
> This is not meant to beat up on Mike, because he has his own life
> to live and I appreciate the work that has been invested into MV on behalf
> of him and any support he receives from IR,  but frankly he has been the
> only source for any answers, and even those have been few and far
> between.

  
Well, most probably because everyone is attempting to ask him
privately, as he said before, he is inundated with questions.

> I'm a first timer and this was my first MV site.  It has not been
> simple and I've probably done a lot of things wrong just get it
> working and those work-arounds may hit me in the butt later, but I feel
> that a  lot of these  frustration could have been avoided if I had a better
> understanding of the product, what I could realistically expect
> from the list for support, and of course had more time for the project.
  
There we are certainly all in the same boat.
  
> I do not mind sharing or posting solutions to questions that I've
> had to work through or around, but I'm not going to take the time now
> to sort through everything I've asked in the past since there may in
> fact be no interest in what I've had to do...

  
No way, but the ones who can answer, where are you ? Hiding ?
  
> If someone, like Gideon, asks, I'll do my best.  He's already
> received several of my source pages.  Why didn't I cross post back to
> the list Gideon's request, because it was sent to me personally and I'm
> attempting to 'blend' with the observed culture of this list which
> doesn't appear to do that...
 
What a pity. Who determines the culture of this list but its members
and hence who can change the perceived culture ? Blending in ? Why ?
 
>  
> I was very happy to see quite a few answers of some people who
> apparently are clueful enough to do so in the last months and weeks.
>  

As for myself, I can't answer, but I also don't ask (technical questions).
I feel uncomfortable doing so, because I can not return the favour.

>  
> If that is list policy, whether implied or explicit, I'm attempting
> to conform.
>  

It is news to me that this is explicit policy, and if implied, I
would the hell not conform to that, if I had the capacity to
participate. Mike Heins hoped by means of this list to get himself of the
burden to answer too many questions he can't handle anymore, AFAIK.

> Perhaps as the formal docs for MV are redesigned, some thought
> should be put into list etiquette and protocol.
>  

I opened my mouth a bit when the first thoughts about the redesign of
the formal docs went on, mentioning that it might be an issue about
how much each volunteer really might be willing and might be capable
to share.
 
The team so far is small and I assume that after the first outline
has been presented, it slowly thinks in, how much work is involved to
redesign the docs, right ? 8-) 

 
>
> I'm not attempting to make waves on this list, just trying to
> survive  and get some real use from MV. Sometimes the price you must pay
> for 'free' software...
>  

Let me say this: 

The support you get for a commercial product of similar capabilities
is by no means better than what you could get either from thist list
or by just paying someone who is a capable MV expert.

This software might be 'free', but it was not produced at "no cost". Or
how do you value the thousands of hours which might have gone into
developing it ?

As far as I can see, Mike Heins, and in the very early stages, Andrew
Wilcox, are the only ones who worked hard on MV, and the clueful experts,
who are capable of using it without much difficulties at "no cost", have
still to prove that they have not "taken a free ride".

The irony which shines through in the culture of this list sometimes
(at least in the first year or so), is that here experts "are taking
a free ride", something that beginners on other lists are often blamed
for, when asking badly researched or formulated questions.

Or should I believe that there are not that many MV experts actually out
there ?

Birgitt Funk

> 
> >
> > >
> > > Barry Treahy
> > >
> > >
> > > Thompson-Jordan wrote:
> > >
> > > > ******    message to minivend-users from "Thompson-Jordan" <Thompson-Jordan@mindspring.com>     ******
> > > >
> > > > Why don't you could improve the quality of the free answers in this list
> > > > by posting the code to the problem you've solved. It could have been that
> > > > no one knew the solution. :-)
> > > >
> > > > Christopher Thompson
> > > >
> > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > From: owner-minivend-users@minivend.com
> > > > > [mailto:owner-minivend-users@minivend.com]On Behalf Of Barry Treahy
> > > > > Sent: Monday, March 01, 1999 12:16 PM
> > > > > To: minivend-users@minivend.com
> > > > > Subject: Re: Go to checkout only if login is successful
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > ******    message to minivend-users from Barry Treahy
> > > > > <treahy@mmaz.com>     ******
> > > > >
> > > > > Gideon... This is exactly what I wanted to do, as a first time
> > > > > MV user and site, and had to learn
> > > > > the hard way as I received answers to probably one out of ten
> > > > > questions...
> > > > >
> > > > > I have done this at the URL: www.midwest-microwave.com/order
> > > > >
> > > > > If you want to look at it and it is close enough to what you
> > > > > want to do, I'd be happy to share my
> > > > > source pages with you.
> > > > >
> > > > > Barry
> > > > >
> > > > > Gideon van Gelder wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > ******    message to minivend-users from "Gideon van Gelder"
> > > > > <gideon@swingmaster.nl>     ******
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hi All,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > There's a problem I can't seem to solve:
> > > > > > I want all my customers to successfully login to the UserDB
> > > > > before they can
> > > > > > enter the checkout page.
> > > > > > If the login fails, I want them to again see the login-page
> > > > > again stating
> > > > > > the [data session failure], not the checkout-page.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Any ideas ?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Thanks in advance,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > -Gideon
> > > > > >
> >
> 

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