A new web newsreader

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 12/9/11 7:58 CST, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> On Friday, 9 December 2011 at 09:17:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> That should be doable but I should say I have a mild preference for
>> directories because every subdomain operation would need a roundtrip
>> to the website admin.
>
> We need to decide on one URL structure and stick to it. Breaking links
> is bad.

Great.

> A few people commented on the app's fast speed, so I'd hate to introduce
> an artificial bottleneck there.

It's news to me that opting for subdomains vs. directories introduces 
significant differences in speed. Why?

> Note that subdomains are tied to the DNS system, not web hosting. For
> example, I see that d-p-l.org was registered by Brad and is hosted on
> PureMagic's name servers, so he would be the person to contact regarding
> subdomains on d-p-l.org. d-programming-language.org is hosted on
> ns0/1.digitaldaemon.com and is registered to Walter.

There's also dlang.org. So in order to introduce new domains or do 
domain operations I need to talk to:

1. Jan Knepper who manages d-programming-language.org

2. Brad Roberts who manages d-p-l.org

3. Oscar Brynolf who owns dlang.org (and whom I don't know)

I can do this, but it's slow, suboptimal, and involves dependencies out 
of my control.

> You can make subdomains a CNAME (like an alias). That way, if I move
> servers, you won't need to bother whoever is responsible for the DNS
> records.
>
> There are also some security considerations with attachments. We need to
> either have a separate subdomain for attachments, or forbid viewing them
> in the browser (which would mean that viewing non-whitelisted
> attachments, including HTML parts, would need to force a download).
> Gmail uses googleusercontent.com for attachments, for example.

Interesting. I don't understand the security issues involved and why 
they can't be addressed by the application, but you're the doc. Perhaps 
we could hardcode only one domain there instead of allowing 
attachments.xxx.org for three domains.

>> Essentially I'm looking at achieving a streamlined process that would
>> allow me to type "make rsync" and deploy the whole thing. See
>> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/d-programming-language.org/blob/master/linux.mak.
>> The process of generating an up-to-date site should be 100% automated.
>
> How about this: the makefile pings an URL on my server, which runs a
> script that downloads the files from http://d-programming-language.org/,
> patches and installs them?

Sounds good. So, say I change doc.ddoc and/or style.css. What is the 
flow through which those will be reflected on your end? What would the 
URLs for posts look like?

> A completely different approach would be to host the program on
> DigitalMars servers, but I'm worried that maintenance will become very
> difficult without access to it.

I understand. We should find a way that allows you to play with the code 
and us to play with the other aspects of the website to keep it consistent.


Thanks,

Andrei