Possibilities - Letter From Phil 3/91

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LETTER FROM PHIL 3/91
---------------------

*** From March 1991 Possibilities Newsletter ***
*** Copyright 1991 by eSoft, Inc.  All Rights Reserved ***

Letter From Phil
by Phil Becker

It's an experience like no other experience I can describe, the best thing 
that can happen to a scientist, realizing that something that's happening in 
his or her mind exactly corresponds to something that happens in nature.  It's 
startling every time it occurs.  One is surprised that a construct of one's 
own mind can actually be realized in the honest-to-goodness world out there.
A great shock, and a great, great, joy. 

                                                             -- Kadanoff

I love it when a plan comes together! 

                                                       -- Hannibal Smith


The long hard hours it takes to design, write, re-write, and re-re-write code 
all become worthwhile when it works.  Usually this feeling happens after it 
doesn't work a few times, but that just makes the victory a bit sweeter.  
Sometimes what looks like a great idea on paper doesn't work out at all.  
Other times something I think will be a small matter develops into a 
highlight.  Once in a while an idle remark leads to a small change in a design 
detail which results in something totally new. 

This has happened in the TBBS message base.  TBBS 2.1 has a message base 
structure which can best be described as "typical" BBS.  I think it is one of 
the better and more usable versions of such a structure, but it still has that 
form.  This message base structure is quite powerful and there are many 
applications which  cannot be served with anything else.  For others it is the 
very best.  However, there are some message based applications for which other 
structures are better. 

Until now, no BBS software has been able to provide the intricate specialized 
message structure known as the message conference.  This structure has been 
developed over the years in an academic environ- ment and is therefore most 
widely seen on UNIX conferencing systems.  Until you see it, it is difficult 
to explain what it adds to the dynamic of a public message forum.  Even when 
you first use it you may not see it as much beyond a different way of 
organizing a BBS.  However, it is quite different. 

TBBS 2.2 will be the first BBS software to offer both a traditional BBS 
message system and also a topic based message conference system.  And it 
happened almost by accident.  Bob Hartman and I were having a TBBS 2.2 design 
session and I was explaining to him some of the inherent limitations in the 
internal message database structure.  I was detailing all of the items which 
were on my "wish list" for message base enhancements, and indicating how they 
impacted that structure. 

In an off-hand way I mentioned that I felt that it would be possible to 
implement a topic based system with a small change in the message base 
structure.  I said that I had always wanted to do this, but that there were 
several other problems (e. g. where to store 5,000 last message read pointers 
for every user) that seemed to me to rule out any such implementation.  He 
asked a simple question, just to clarify his understanding of a small detail, 
and it happened.  Somehow, this question about a detail I had thought about 
many times before triggered me to an insight which broke everything open.  As 
a result the message system will have several new features in TBBS 2.2 
including a true topic based conference type message board capability. 

I have been writing computer software for over 25 years now, but I never cease 
to be thrilled by moments like these.  They are the "magic moments" which 
allow breakthroughs in a technology.  Often they are trivial by themselves, 
but they open the way to whole areas of development.  Usually the work which 
leads up to them is simple, and the work which leads from them to great new 
capability is small. 

It seems odd that a combination of three small things can result in something 
which is so big.  That moment when you realize that the barrier is gone, and 
you know it is only a matter of finishing the steps to be done, is indeed a 
pleasure like very few others.  And I get the added pleasure of seeing it 
developed into a product like TBBS which I can then make available to you.  It 
will be even more fun to see what you do with it that I never imagined ... 

- END -
PS0391-1
Rev. 3/91

Copyright (C) 1994 eSoft, Inc., All Rights Reserved.  Permission granted
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