RE: Why do so many of you seem to be so against people that are new to server administration figuring this out?

["Thompson-Jordan" <Thompson-Jordan@mindspring.com>]

I think that your complaint is the same as most people new to Minivend. I
had the same initial reaction. Ultimately I understood that Minivend,
because it is very customizable, because it has to do many very different
things, and because it must interface with many other pieces of software
to do its job, defies simplistic explanations. There is not just one, but
several exceptions to everything in Minivend, and good reasons for it to
be designed the way it is. I think Mike Heins is pretty clear upfront that
you need to give it a lot time and eventually Minivend trains to think
like it works. Part of struggle is Perl, which Larry Wall (who I don't
know at all) describes as a Postmodern language. Perl gives those trained
in C fits because it is not orthogonal. Eventually you will surrender to
it.

As for MiniMate, it is very new software. Give them time and support. It
will come together.

Christopher Thompson


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-minivend-users@minivend.com
> [mailto:owner-minivend-users@minivend.com]On Behalf Of Roy D.
> Sent: Saturday, July 31, 1999 10:42 PM
> To: minivend-users@minivend.com
> Subject: Why do so many of you seem to be so against people that are new
> to server administration figuring this out?
>
>
> I am fairly new to the internet and server administration compared to
> some of you.
>
> I will get it figured out eventually.
>
> I really like MiniVend and I plan to use it as a part of my hosting
> package that I am setting up.
>
> It seems to me that the Documentation and this list are both geared
> toward keeping things so obscure that it is nearly impossible for a
> newcomer to figure it out without a lot of headaches.
>
> The Documentation seems to be so complete that it obscures the obvious
> little things.
>
> The way this list is set up the threads are not even followed.
>
> The topic might jump from databases to sockets and then to MiniMate and
> back to some other completely unrelated thing, like "no subject".
>
> I wonder if it might be better to set up a regular bulletin board that
> the people posting to it could better control threads and topics.
>
> I have MiniVend running on one of my sites now at a very basic level and
> I know a lot more about it than I did at first.
>
> I would like to be involved in helping other people like myself figure
> out how to set it up, and I am in the process of writing a more simple
> version of how to install it as I figure it out.
>
> I will post it here once I get it done for you experts to pick apart and
> make it better.
>
> I think that it might be good to have at least two versions, one for
> installing on servers that people have root level and one for people
> that are on virtual servers.
>
> In order to install the modules that are needed I had to install my own
> local copy of perl because I do not have write permission to install
> modules otherwise.
>
> I am still trying to figure out how to make MiniMate work.
> The instructions for it are not complete as far as I can tell.
> There is something not included that is necessary to make it work.
>
> Does anybody have it working or is everyone having the same trouble I
> am?
> It does not work at all yet.
> It only says something about contains no data.
> Last time I installed it it said it was not a minivend page.
> administration
> Thanks,
> Roy
>