Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool

[Terry Reedy]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion


"JanC" <usenet_spam@ja nc.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xns942FE9D B9B588JanC@213. 118.46.22...[color=blue]
> "Edward K. Ream" <edreamleo@char ter.net> schreef:
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> >> Such a request is *NOT* a legitimate 'anti-junk-mail' measure.[/color]
> >
> > Yes, it is. If you aren't willing to take 20 sec. to talk to me,[/color][/color]
then[color=blue][color=green]
> > I'm not willing to talk to you. Bye.[/color]
>
> One question: why not let people do this "confirmati on" through[/color]
email[color=blue]
> instead of requiring them to start a separate program? Something[/color]
like a[color=blue]
> mailing list confirmation mail?[/color]

That is exactly what legitimate whitelist programs do. Click reply
and send. I have gotten such and answered such.

Terry J. Reedy

[Terry Reedy]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion


"Edward K. Ream" <edreamleo@char ter.net> wrote in message
news:vqvuscjbj6 lmd4@corp.super news.com...[color=blue][color=green]
> > Such a request is *NOT* a legitimate 'anti-junk-mail' measure.[/color]
>
> Yes, it is.[/color]

Your request is unnecessary to the purported purpose and, to at least
three people, obnoxious. Furthermore, I believe universal
implementation of that system would be terrible, both socially and
technically.
[color=blue]
> If you aren't willing to take 20 sec. to talk to me,[/color]

I spent much more than 20 seconds writing you a polite note for your
benefit. You are the one refusing to take even 5 seconds to look it.
Or to use a decent, unobstrusive or miminal imposition filtering
system.
[color=blue]
> then I'm not willing to talk to you. Bye.[/color]

That is your right, and mine, and probably our mutual loss is some
respects.
....[color=blue]
> Edward K. Ream email: edreamleo@chart er.net[/color]

By posting your email address over and over, you are still inviting
responses that you will not read. Not nice. At least warn people
that they will have to fire up a browser a few days later and beg you
to read their original message. Or simply give the URL of your
'correspondant registration' service and suggest that people register
(or not) *before* writing.

Terry J. Reedy

[Douglas Alan]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion

"Terry Reedy" <tjreedy@udel.e du> writes:
[color=blue]
> "Edward K. Ream" <edreamleo@char ter.net> wrote in message[/color]
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>> > Such a request is *NOT* a legitimate 'anti-junk-mail' measure.[/color][/color][/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Yes, it is.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> Your request is unnecessary to the purported purpose and, to at least
> three people, obnoxious. Furthermore, I believe universal
> implementation of that system would be terrible, both socially and
> technically.[/color]

Although I agree with you that requiring people to fire up a browser
to get yourself on their whitelist is a bit annoying, I also think you
make much ado about nothing. Even if you had to spend 30 seconds
authorizing yourself to everyone you ever needed to contact, it could
hardly take all that much time.

For now, the technique of just asking people to reply to a message is
sufficient as an anti-spam filter, but you have to realize that such a
convenience won't last forever. The spammers will eventually get
smart enough to auto-reply to such messages.

In the long run, the sorts of techniques that Yahoo, and other web
sites, where you have to look at a distorted image and identify it (a
task that cannot easily be automated), in order to put yourself on the
list, will be required, so you should probably get used to it now.

|>oug

[Nick Vargish]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion

"Terry Reedy" <tjreedy@udel.e du> writes:
[color=blue]
> Your request is unnecessary to the purported purpose and, to at least
> three people, obnoxious.[/color]

At least four people.
[color=blue]
> Furthermore, I believe universal implementation of that system would
> be terrible, both socially and technically.[/color]

Exactly, this is the root of why this spam-prevention tactic is
awful. It turns people who want to communicate with each other into
supplicants for for the other's time.

There are several ways to communicate as the leader of an open-source
project. One is of condescending arrogance, to wit, "My time is so
important that you must jump through hoops to speak to me." The other
is one of helpful cooperation. "Thanks, I'm really busy right now,
I'll address the issue you raised as soon as I can."

It's left as an excercise to the reader which category I see Edward's
tactic falling into. :^)

Nick

--
# sigmask || 0.2 || 20030107 || public domain || feed this to a python
print reduce(lambda x,y:x+chr(ord(y )-1),' Ojdl!Wbshjti!=o bwAcboefstobudi/psh?')

[Alexander Schmolck]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: gui issues

"Edward K. Ream" <edreamleo@char ter.net> writes:
[color=blue]
> 2. One of my hopes in writing the original series of postings was that
> there would be some discussion of integrating Leo with Emacs using pymacs.
> This may have started to happen. I would really like help with this project,
> and I'll support anyone working on such a project in any way I can. I think
> running some kind of Leo window on Emacs would be totally cool.[/color]

Have you come across allout.el and speedbar.el (a seperate tree browser
window)? Emacs has several outlining facilities amongst which allout is the
best IMO (I already use it for some of my python code) -- integrated with
speedbar this would supply quite a bit of the core functionality that leo
offers (plus, of course plenty additional functionality, most importantly good
editing and search facilities).

'as

[Brad Clements]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion

_
"Nick Vargish" <nav+posts@band ersnatch.org> wrote in message
news:m3brrhliid .fsf@tanelorn.b andersnatch.org ...[color=blue]
> "Terry Reedy" <tjreedy@udel.e du> writes:[/color]
[color=blue]
> There are several ways to communicate as the leader of an open-source
> project.[/color]

Including posting in the source forge forum that was setup for that purpose,
rather than emailing the author directly, or posting in c.l.p
[color=blue]
> One is of condescending arrogance, to wit, "My time is so
> important that you must jump through hoops to speak to me." The other
> is one of helpful cooperation. "Thanks, I'm really busy right now,
> I'll address the issue you raised as soon as I can."[/color]

Nick,

While I don't know you, I've read your posts in this forum and found them
all to be reasonable. I'm surprised that you expressed your opinion in such
harsh terms this time.
[color=blue]
> It's left as an excercise to the reader which category I see Edward's
> tactic falling into. :^)[/color]

Some time ago I sent email to Edward and I received the "you must confirm
you're a human" thing. True, I thought it was annoying and in fact did not
immediately do anything about it. However we all have Spam issues and while
I wouldn't have taken Edwards approach to solving my spam problems, I
eventually expended 30 seconds to "suplicate myself to his spam software"
and get my message through.

I don't think it's supplication to the author, just his anti-spam guard dog.
I don't see Edwards statement (paraphrased) "if you want me to take time to
solve your problem, take a moment to confirm your a human" as arrogance,
just a fact of life.

Rather than writing to the author, you could just post in the Leo specific
forum, where your post could be answered by Edward or other users, and the
ensuing thread would be archived for other folks to later benefit from.

[Stephen Boulet]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: gui issues

I see that allout.el is supplied with xemacs for windows. How does it
get activated?

Stephen

Alexander Schmolck wrote:
[color=blue]
> Have you come across allout.el and speedbar.el (a seperate tree browser
> window)? Emacs has several outlining facilities amongst which allout is the
> best IMO (I already use it for some of my python code) -- integrated with
> speedbar this would supply quite a bit of the core functionality that leo
> offers (plus, of course plenty additional functionality, most importantly good
> editing and search facilities).
>
> 'as[/color]

[Nick Vargish]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion

"Brad Clements" <bkc@Murkworks. com> writes:
[color=blue]
> While I don't know you, I've read your posts in this forum and found them
> all to be reasonable.[/color]

I'm pretty sure that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all day. :^)
[color=blue]
> I'm surprised that you expressed your opinion in such harsh terms
> this time.[/color]

Me too, actually. I should have just typed my message and then
killed the buffer without sending it, which is how I usually handle
irritations like this.
[color=blue]
> Rather than writing to the author, you could just post in the Leo specific
> forum, where your post could be answered by Edward or other users, and the
> ensuing thread would be archived for other folks to later benefit from.[/color]

I completely agree. It's too bad that Edward's automated reply did not
refer the supplicant to the appropriate sourceforge forum, which would
have been both non-arrogant, and of benefit to the community at large.

Only rarely have I been in situations where the appropriate face-to-
face response to a question was, "Talk to the hand until you've proved
your question is worth my time."

Anyway, I'm sorry I chimed in on this thread. It's diverged pretty far
from the topic I really care about, which is becoming a better Python
programmer (with a little advocacy thrown in for spice).

Nick

--
# sigmask || 0.2 || 20030107 || public domain || feed this to a python
print reduce(lambda x,y:x+chr(ord(y )-1),' Ojdl!Wbshjti!=o bwAcboefstobudi/psh?')

[Neil Hodgson]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion

I would also like to see people that use confirmation-request software
qualify their addresses in a similar way to the qualification done for
registration-required web sites: user@python.org (confirmation required).
This allows potential respondents to make an informed decision on whether to
respond.

Worse than using confirmation-request for individuals is using it on an
account subscribed to a mailing list such that every poster is asked to
confirm for every confirmation-request subscriber. This recently occurred on
a list I manage so I unsubscribed the confirmation-request account. The
subscriber has since promised not to use confirmation-request for that
account.

Neil

[Aahz]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion

In article <lc1xseu6go.fsf @gaffa.mit.edu> ,
Douglas Alan <nessus@mit.edu > wrote:[color=blue]
>
>In the long run, the sorts of techniques that Yahoo, and other web
>sites, where you have to look at a distorted image and identify it (a
>task that cannot easily be automated), in order to put yourself on the
>list, will be required, so you should probably get used to it now.[/color]

No, they won't. They'll be challenged under the ADA (Americans with
Disabilities Act) and judged illegal.
--
Aahz (aahz@pythoncra ft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code."
--Bill Harlan

[Nick Vargish]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion

aahz@pythoncraf t.com (Aahz) writes:
[color=blue]
> No, they won't. They'll be challenged under the ADA (Americans with
> Disabilities Act) and judged illegal.[/color]

I'm amazed it hasn't been challenged yet. I can't see how the tactic
doesn't violate Section 508, which means the US goverment can't employ
it on any of their sites.

Nick

--
# sigmask || 0.2 || 20030107 || public domain || feed this to a python
print reduce(lambda x,y:x+chr(ord(y )-1),' Ojdl!Wbshjti!=o bwAcboefstobudi/psh?')

[Douglas Alan]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion

aahz@pythoncraf t.com (Aahz) writes:
[color=blue][color=green]
>>In the long run, the sorts of techniques that Yahoo, and other web
>>sites, where you have to look at a distorted image and identify it (a
>>task that cannot easily be automated), in order to put yourself on the
>>list, will be required, so you should probably get used to it now.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> No, they won't. They'll be challenged under the ADA (Americans with
> Disabilities Act) and judged illegal.[/color]

C'mon -- you're pulling my leg, right? That's just silly. The
alternative is to give up on email because 99% of it will eventually
be spam.

Besides, there could be alternate distorted "images" for the disabled:
A distorted braille image could be formed, or a sound could be played
and the person could be asked to identify it. Or a question could be
asked that an automated program wouldn't be able to easily answer.

|>oug

[Stephen Horne]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 21:29:35 -0500, "Terry Reedy" <tjreedy@udel.e du>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>I will not beg you to read my bug report. Such a request is *NOT* a
>legitimate 'anti-junk-mail' measure.[/color]

Is using that approval thing 'begging you to read...' to any greater
degree than sending the e-mail in the first place?

My impression is that the 'reason' thing could just be 'Leo support
request' or similar, for instance - enough to demonstrate that your
e-mail is legitimate but hardly a chore.

There would be a practical issue, of course, if you have access to
e-mail but not to the web. But that has nothing to do with whether you
are being asked to 'beg' or not.

Basically, I think you are overreacting to this. I don't use
ChoiceMail or anything similar, but with the huge volume of spam,
virus's and incorrect 'you sent us a virus' messages these days, I
certainly see the attraction and I can say that - while I don't use
Leo ATM - this authorisation thing certainly wouldn't worry me.

Actually, compare it with Web support request pages where you
carefully type in all the details of your problem, only to be told
"request failed - 'problem description' exceeded limit of 100
characters" or whatever.

Yes, I seriously wish one company used ChoiceMail instead of the
stupid system they are using, and ended up posting a support request
of 'please send me an e-mail address so I can describe the problem
properly'. Actually, the problem relates to interaction with another
product I'm trialing, and odds are they've already lost the sale to be
honest. The product seems very good and easily worth the money, but it
has enough fiddly aspects that I strongly suspect I'll need to fight
their support system again.

It would be nice if we could just fire-and-forget e-mails, but those
days seem to be coming to an end - the e-mail system is just too open
to abuse.


--
Steve Horne

steve at ninereeds dot fsnet dot co dot uk

[Stephen Horne]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 21:59:20 GMT, JanC <usenet_spam@ja nc.invalid>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>"Edward K. Ream" <edreamleo@char ter.net> schreef:
>[color=green][color=darkred]
>>> Such a request is *NOT* a legitimate 'anti-junk-mail' measure.[/color]
>>
>> Yes, it is. If you aren't willing to take 20 sec. to talk to me, then
>> I'm not willing to talk to you. Bye.[/color]
>
>One question: why not let people do this "confirmati on" through email
>instead of requiring them to start a separate program? Something like a
>mailing list confirmation mail?[/color]

If the approval is via e-mail then you have to accept e-mail from
unknown people in order to recieve the approval requests in the first
place. That means you still recieve the spam.

Of course you could make up some scheme with a standard subject line
that is recognised as an authorisation request.


--
Steve Horne

steve at ninereeds dot fsnet dot co dot uk

[Terry Reedy]

Re: Leo + Python: the ultimate scripting tool: Conclusion


"Stephen Horne" <steve@ninereed s.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:q9o6rv8rj8 ilh2n9qrjou17kj hd9jbvg0f@4ax.c om...[color=blue]
> On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 21:29:35 -0500, "Terry Reedy" <tjreedy@udel.e du>
> wrote:
>[color=green]
> >I will not beg you to read my bug report. Such a request is *NOT*[/color][/color]
a[color=blue][color=green]
> >legitimate 'anti-junk-mail' measure.[/color]
>
> Is using that approval thing 'begging you to read...' to any greater
> degree than sending the e-mail in the first place?[/color]

To me, yes, most definitely, and especially for a short, two sentence
message.
[color=blue]
> My impression is that the 'reason' thing could just be 'Leo support
> request' or similar, for instance - enough to demonstrate that your
> e-mail is legitimate but hardly a chore.[/color]

But I do literally do not know what 'reason' thing any particular
person might want, or what an unknown person would even consider to be
a reason. Given my communication philosophy (choice, not reason) and
writing ability, I could find writing anything other that what I
originally wrote, already the best I could do, a paralyzing chore.
"What will Mr/Ms Recipient find acceptible? Will s/he even read what
I write or is this just a joke?" Etcetera.

I am somewhat flabbergasted that more people do not see the oddity of
"I will not read your first message (yet) but I will read a second
message from you in which you attempt to give me a reason that I find
'acceptible', according to my unknown-to-you whims, that I do read
your first message."

If someone is willing to read and evaluate message 2 to judge whether
the person is a suitable correspondant, then s/he could just as well
read (or just glance at) message 1 and make the same decision from the
better information of actual content.

In this case, the best 'reason' I could have given would have been to
repeat the self-justifying message itself. But that strikes me as
sort of somewhat dumb. Sort of like telling a secretary what I want
to say to his boss, except that the secretary is the boss. (Hmm.
Could be a funny sketch for a certain comedic troop.)

My objection is not just for email. I would find a
double-message-thru-a-third-party procedure just as odd for physical
letters or phone calls, even if under the guise of blocking junk mail
or junk phone calls, which I also get too many of.
[color=blue]
> There would be a practical issue, of course, if you have access to
> e-mail but not to the web.[/color]

There are numerous people around the world with email-only accounts,
or email-only devices. There are also people who have web access but
pay by the byte. While not applicable to me personally, these
anti-universality practical issues *are* one of the reasons I will not
encourage such a system. Call it altruism if you will.
[color=blue]
> Basically, I think you are overreacting to this.[/color]

'Beg' may have been a little strong, but otherwise I still don't
agree. Given that I hope to use Leo, I did not lightly or
thoughtlessly decide to openly fuss. My reasons goes far beyound a
mere 30-second annoyance (and have nothing to do with Leo or ER per
se). Discuss or even disagree if you will, but I think this
particular 'solution' is both socially and technically flawed.

To continue: I do not want any company to compile a list of *my*
correspondants. The US Post Office needs a court order (or at least
used to) to do the same. I am not about to give same to an unknown
entity I do not trust for free, especially when the procedure is
unnecessary and even counter to the supposed purpose.

As to the last. Decent filtering or automated verification by email
response to the challenge email, as other programs do, does not
require the intended
recipient to read anything but the original message, after
verification, and does *not* involve a third party to collect data
about senders.

In another post, you wrote:[color=blue]
> If the approval is via e-mail then you have to accept e-mail from
> unknown people in order to recieve the approval requests in the[/color]
first[color=blue]
> place. That means you still recieve the spam.[/color]

No. As an alternative to rule/statistical filtering (which have
become quite effective), a whitelist program on your machine (or
corporate server) sets the message aside and sends a reply with a
coded subject line: "Hi new correspondant. Please confirm that you
are human and that you are the actual sender of the following". When,
and only when it gets the response, does it put it in your inbox.
[color=blue]
> Of course you could make up some scheme with a standard subject line
> that is recognised as an authorisation request.[/color]

The program does this for you. All automated. Much easier, I think,
than reading 'please read me' requests.

A spam program could learn to respond to such challenge email, but
that would require an actual, persistent-for-a-few-hours and
potentially trackable mailbox rather than the fake or forged headers
now used. Such a program might just as well go to a site and enter a
reason like "I need your help', 'I have info for you', or even 'Viagra
at pharmo.tu'. In other words, any alternate message-to-human channel
could become an alternate spam channel!

In the reverse direction, if the verification site has ads on the
referred-to-page, then it would be a spam-to-original-sender channel
itself. Or the site could secretly sell the verified
active-and-correct addresses (market value, I've read, at least $20
each). Or a legitimate site could be hacked for its list. Or a site
could be set up by a spammer acting through a front. Run it
legitimately for a month, and then the deluge. Things like this are
easily predictable from past events. (For similar reasons, I would
also be wary of closed-source mail/spam software from unknowns.)

So I think any serious attack on junk email should aim at improving
local machine automated systems with minimal bother for human senders.
To foil better spam programs if/when deploed, something like the
following might work: "To verify sentience, click reply, enter on the
first line the number of legs that has a snake [or parrot, cat, ant,
or spider], and press send." in thousands of variations, and perhaps
misspellings, misspacings, and even anti-robot locutions like the
following:
[color=blue]
> steve at ninereeds dot fsnet dot co dot uk[/color]

Terry J. Reedy