A new home for Dragon Code

[Bluefire]

Hello everyone!

I have noticed that it has been getting increasingly harder to come by
Dragon Code's documentation and, as such, Dragon Codes themselves. Most
sites hosting any info on it have disappeared over the years. As such, I
thought using a bit of my free time to lend a hand in preserving this
amazing thing would be worth it.

I have created a new, modern and extensive documentation website for
Dragon Code (focused on version 2, though info on the original version
can also be found there) which, at the moment, can be found here:
https://dragoncode.netlify.app

It is a work-in-progress, so I don't consider it quite finished yet. It
is also open-source, so feel free to host a copy of this website on your
own server as a means to help preserve it. To end this post, I would
like to say that any feedback would also be certainly be appreciated.

Have a nice day,
- Yours truly

[Sendo Shin]

Looks great! Looking forward to seeing the generator for this. ^.=.^

[tom]

On Mon, 7 Sep 2020 22:37:20 +0200

Post by Bluefire
Hello everyone!
I have noticed that it has been getting increasingly harder to come
by Dragon Code's documentation and, as such, Dragon Codes themselves.
Most sites hosting any info on it have disappeared over the years. As
such, I thought using a bit of my free time to lend a hand in
preserving this amazing thing would be worth it.
I have created a new, modern and extensive documentation website for
Dragon Code (focused on version 2, though info on the original
version can also be found there) which, at the moment, can be found
here: https://dragoncode.netlify.app
It is a work-in-progress, so I don't consider it quite finished yet.
It is also open-source, so feel free to host a copy of this website
on your own server as a means to help preserve it. To end this post,
I would like to say that any feedback would also be certainly be
appreciated.
Have a nice day,
- Yours truly

It just says Loading... on a white blackground

[Bluefire]

Post by tom
It just says Loading... on a white blackground

Which browser are you using, if I may ask?

[tom]

On Thu, 10 Sep 2020 10:46:45 +0200

Post by Bluefire

Post by tom
It just says Loading... on a white blackground

Which browser are you using, if I may ask?

Web Browser 29.0.1. It's Goanna based. I also use xlinks2

[Bluefire]

Post by tom
On Thu, 10 Sep 2020 10:46:45 +0200

Post by Bluefire

Post by tom
It just says Loading... on a white blackground

Which browser are you using, if I may ask?

Web Browser 29.0.1. It's Goanna based. I also use xlinks2

Your web browser needs to support modern JavaScript in order for the
page to render. It may be that yours doesn't support it, or perhaps you
have it disabled, which is why you're getting a white screen. If you're
looking for a browser that will render the page correctly, all major
browsers (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Safari) should support it.

[tom]

On Fri, 11 Sep 2020 20:19:20 +0200

Post by Bluefire

Post by tom
On Thu, 10 Sep 2020 10:46:45 +0200

Post by Bluefire

Post by tom
It just says Loading... on a white blackground

Which browser are you using, if I may ask?

Web Browser 29.0.1. It's Goanna based. I also use xlinks2

Your web browser needs to support modern JavaScript in order for the
page to render. It may be that yours doesn't support it, or perhaps
you have it disabled, which is why you're getting a white screen. If
you're looking for a browser that will render the page correctly, all
major browsers (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Safari) should support it.

Please make portable, interoperable web pages according to standards.
"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on
a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web,
when you had very little chance of reading a document written on
another computer, another word processor, or another network." -- Tim
Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996
https://anybrowser.org/campaign/

There is a tool by the W3C for checking your site and providing
feedback. https://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_uri+with_options
Set it to XHTML1.1

You are excluding a significant portion of viewers by making your site
rely on 'modern JavaSript' instead of standardized XHTML. Even more
frustrating is know that a simple text or non JavaScript alternative
could be supplied. Nonetheless, the unhappy trend is to simply tell the
user to upgrade his software. For many of us this is not an option, as
our hardware cannot support it; Among many other reasons why one would
not use a Google/Mozilla product nor should I have to.

You have obviously put a great deal of effort into rediscovering and
re-publishing the dragon code to the web, so why do an incomplete job
of it?

Let everyone with a XHTML standards compliant browser view your site.
Not just those with 'Modern Javascript'. Show your readers that you
have taken the care to create an interoperable Web page.

[Bluefire]

Post by tom
On Fri, 11 Sep 2020 20:19:20 +0200

Post by Bluefire

Post by tom
On Thu, 10 Sep 2020 10:46:45 +0200

Post by Bluefire

Post by tom
It just says Loading... on a white blackground

Which browser are you using, if I may ask?

Web Browser 29.0.1. It's Goanna based. I also use xlinks2

Your web browser needs to support modern JavaScript in order for the
page to render. It may be that yours doesn't support it, or perhaps
you have it disabled, which is why you're getting a white screen. If
you're looking for a browser that will render the page correctly, all
major browsers (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Safari) should support it.

Please make portable, interoperable web pages according to standards.
"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on
a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web,
when you had very little chance of reading a document written on
another computer, another word processor, or another network." -- Tim
Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996
https://anybrowser.org/campaign/
There is a tool by the W3C for checking your site and providing
feedback. https://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_uri+with_options
Set it to XHTML1.1
You are excluding a significant portion of viewers by making your site
rely on 'modern JavaSript' instead of standardized XHTML. Even more
frustrating is know that a simple text or non JavaScript alternative
could be supplied. Nonetheless, the unhappy trend is to simply tell the
user to upgrade his software. For many of us this is not an option, as
our hardware cannot support it; Among many other reasons why one would
not use a Google/Mozilla product nor should I have to.
You have obviously put a great deal of effort into rediscovering and
re-publishing the dragon code to the web, so why do an incomplete job
of it?
Let everyone with a XHTML standards compliant browser view your site.
Not just those with 'Modern Javascript'. Show your readers that you
have taken the care to create an interoperable Web page.

Portable it already is. The site runs on any static web server. This is
important, because it allows anyone to easily host a copy of the site. It
helps keep the documentation online.

The website adheres to standards as much as possible. JavaScript has long
been standardised, and many older browsers support it as well. If one
wanted to avoid Google or Mozilla, there still are alternatives available
that will work with the site.

Even if I were to switch to purely HTML and CSS, the thing is, it still
wouldn’t work because the site enforces HTTPS for additional security. The
point it, while you should sometimes indeed forgo certain things for
compatibility’s sake, past a certain point it isn’t worth it if that means
that the great, great majority ends up with a worse experience.

I have considered this, believe it or not, from the very beginning. The
site’s content is still very much in development and utilising JavaScript
makes this development much easier, which is why the site requires the use
of JavaScript to function (until development is complete, at the very
least). Once the source code for the site becomes available, feel free to
use the Markdown documents in the repository which hold the site’s content.
It requires nothing more than a basic text editor to open.

[Bluefire]

Sorry for the double post. Trying to use Usenet from your phone isn’t
particularity a great experience. :P

[Bluefire]

Post by Bluefire
Sorry for the double post. Trying to use Usenet from your phone isn’t
particularity a great experience. :P

*particularly

So... like I said. Heh...

[Bluefire]

Post by tom
On Fri, 11 Sep 2020 20:19:20 +0200

Post by Bluefire

Post by tom
On Thu, 10 Sep 2020 10:46:45 +0200

Post by Bluefire

Post by tom
It just says Loading... on a white blackground

Which browser are you using, if I may ask?

Web Browser 29.0.1. It's Goanna based. I also use xlinks2

Your web browser needs to support modern JavaScript in order for the
page to render. It may be that yours doesn't support it, or perhaps
you have it disabled, which is why you're getting a white screen. If
you're looking for a browser that will render the page correctly, all
major browsers (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Safari) should support it.

Please make portable, interoperable web pages according to standards.
"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on
a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web,
when you had very little chance of reading a document written on
another computer, another word processor, or another network." -- Tim
Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996
https://anybrowser.org/campaign/
There is a tool by the W3C for checking your site and providing
feedback. https://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_uri+with_options
Set it to XHTML1.1
You are excluding a significant portion of viewers by making your site
rely on 'modern JavaSript' instead of standardized XHTML. Even more
frustrating is know that a simple text or non JavaScript alternative
could be supplied. Nonetheless, the unhappy trend is to simply tell the
user to upgrade his software. For many of us this is not an option, as
our hardware cannot support it; Among many other reasons why one would
not use a Google/Mozilla product nor should I have to.
You have obviously put a great deal of effort into rediscovering and
re-publishing the dragon code to the web, so why do an incomplete job
of it?
Let everyone with a XHTML standards compliant browser view your site.
Not just those with 'Modern Javascript'. Show your readers that you
have taken the care to create an interoperable Web page.

Portable it already is. The site runs on any static web server. This is
important, because it allows anyone to easily host a copy of the site. It
helps keep the documentation online.

The website adheres to standards as much as possible. JavaScript has long
been standardised, and many older browsers support it as well. If one
wanted to avoid Google or Mozilla, there are alternatives available that
will work with the site.

Even if I were to switch to purely HTML and CSS, the thing is, it still
wouldn’t work because the site enforces HTTPS for additional security. The
point is, while you should sometimes indeed forgo certain things for
compatibility’s sake, past a certain point it isn’t worth it if that means
that the great, great majority ends up with a worse experience.

Believe it or not, I have considered all of this from the very beginning.
The thing is, the site’s content is still very much in development and
utilising JavaScript makes this development much easier, which is why
that’s currently a requirement (until this development is complete, at
least). Once the source code for the site becomes available, feel free to
use the Markdown documents in the repository which hold the site’s content.
It requires nothing more than a basic text editor to open.

[tom]

On Sun, 13 Sep 2020 11:41:36 -0000 (UTC)

Post by Bluefire
Portable it already is. The site runs on any static web server. This
is important, because it allows anyone to easily host a copy of the
site. It helps keep the documentation online.
The website adheres to standards as much as possible. JavaScript has
long been standardised, and many older browsers support it as well.
If one wanted to avoid Google or Mozilla, there are alternatives
available that will work with the site.
Even if I were to switch to purely HTML and CSS, the thing is, it
still wouldn’t work because the site enforces HTTPS for additional
security. The point is, while you should sometimes indeed forgo
certain things for compatibility’s sake, past a certain point it
isn’t worth it if that means that the great, great majority ends up
with a worse experience.
Believe it or not, I have considered all of this from the very
beginning. The thing is, the site’s content is still very much in
development and utilising JavaScript makes this development much
easier, which is why that’s currently a requirement (until this
development is complete, at least). Once the source code for the site
becomes available, feel free to use the Markdown documents in the
repository which hold the site’s content. It requires nothing more
than a basic text editor to open.

OPEN LETTER TO WEBMASTERS

I do not feel comfortable using Firefox or Chromium. Both of those
browsers are huge and are corporate spyware. In tests they send back
MASSIVE amounts of personal data and otherwise phone home. In addition
to that, those browsers do not have as strong as tracking protection or
audited code base and they are impossible to audit externally given how
large and fast their code base moves. [1][2] Try to git clone
chromium.git sometime. You will find yourself downloading over 18
gigabytes of code.

Those browsers, especially Firefox are incredibly difficult to bootstrap
and compile on many platforms due to it's Rust dependencies and poorly
written C++ code; Requiring many downstream fixes and porting before
they can be run by users such as myself.

In addition to that the web pseudo-standards you have chosen in your new
websites are not vendor neutral. They are made by WhatWG which consists
of mainly just google [7], front organizations that are 96% funded by
Google [3], and monopolistic anti-freedom anti-competition anti-open-web
corporations who push DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) into the
web via the pseudo-standards body WhatWG [4][5] causing the Electronic
Frontier Foundation to leave the W3C [5], which tongue-in-cheekily
just snapshots the Whatwg's HTML5. The WhatWG is not a independent
conflict of interest free standards body it is a "working group".

Websites relying on JavaScript features that are
only available in the latest version of these corporate spyware
browsers such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox is harmful.

ECMA is bad design. "Let release a new "standard" every year" --
they are so disconnected from people actually implementing all of this.
Just because a committee approves it, doesn't mean it'll be adopted any
time soon, if at all.

A lot of these ""standards"" are probably done this way on purpose to
racketeer so nobody besides Google can implement them.

Please keep this in mind for future projects. What I would suggest is having
Graceful Degradation in your design like the previous websites had.
https://www.w3.org/wiki/Graceful_degradation_versus_progressive_enhancement

Please keep in mind that differently-abled people need to access your
website and many such people use browsers other than google chrome or
Firefox to do so, such as W3M and WB.

Please do not rely on features only available in the latest version of
ECMA. Please do use polyfills and graceful degradation. Please use
XHTML1.1 and XHTML1.1 BASIC wherever possible instead of HTML5. With
XHTML1.1 you actually can run an XML validation tool such as the one at
https://validator.w3.org/ and it will tell you if your site is valid
and will work on every browser or it's malformed. There is no
in-between with XHTML. It's either correct or it's not, unlike HTML. See
https://anybrowser.org/campaign/ for more information on this and
examples of more sites using XHTML.

Just a wild suggestion that I thought would be pretty cool. Could you
offer something in addition to a web interface like
a ssh based terminal interface? That would be easier to program and
very portable as well as comfortable to use and easy for people with
disabilities to interface with. Not everything has to be web. For some
reference telnet into bbs.dmine.net or ssh into
***@ascii.town or ***@whisper.onthewifi.com sometime.

[1] https://www.spywarewatchdog.org/articles/chrome.html
[2] https://www.spywarewatchdog.org/articles/firefox.html
[3] https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/mozilla.html#finances
[4] https://www.defectivebydesign.org/
[5] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-
director-ceo-team-and-membership
[7] https://whatwg.org/sg-agreement

[Bluefire]

Post by tom
I do not feel comfortable using Firefox or Chromium. Both of those
browsers are huge and are corporate spyware. In tests they send back
MASSIVE amounts of personal data and otherwise phone home. In addition
to that, those browsers do not have as strong as tracking protection or
audited code base and they are impossible to audit externally given how
large and fast their code base moves. [1][2] Try to git clone
chromium.git sometime. You will find yourself downloading over 18
gigabytes of code.

If you are unable or unwilling to use a modern web browser, that's fine.
If JavaScript is disabled, a link to a Markdown file will show up. You
can open it with any text editor and read the site's content just fine.

Kind regards,
Bluefire

[arialth]

This post might be inappropriate. Click to display it.

[Raeadh`ani]

[A bunch of barely-coherent nonsense from Tom]
[Great reply from Arialth]

Especially when Bluefire was trying to do something nice/wonderful & preserve something that could have just as easily been lost to memory like so many things before have.
Tom was coming off as an ass last year & is coming off as an ass this year. At least there's consistency.