I remember XBConnect and GameSpy for playing Xbox Halo 1 over the internet. I think a couple were invented for every big game or console before 2010 or so.
Tailscale doesn't really address connecting to strangers, though.
Yes, XBConnect! Nevermind that you threw a grenade in Halo a whole 2 seconds after you pressed the button, you were playing with your friends! Good times.
The thing I really like about Phlex is that it's not a full DSL, it's not its own language. It's an expressive Ruby API and the resulting code has the regular Ruby toolbox available. Ruby devs often call this a "DSL" and I lean away from that use of the term because I think it adds confusion in situations like this. But Phlex feels like a breath of fresh air because it's composable, testable, "just ruby", and has a lot fewer opportunities to footgun myself.
I agree on your criticisms of Erb and ActionView. I'd add that Erb is just really noisy jumping in and out of Ruby with <%= %> constantly. I'm regularly running down basic errors in producing well-formed HTML.
I'm still only experimenting a little with Phlex. I'm not sold on some of its design like the distinction between views and components, but maybe that's a practice/docs issue. I'd also like to see a performance test that's not a microbenchmark and I may try to make one this month. Similar to your note about haml, I've told the project devs that I'd be really encouraged by a phlex -> erb tool to reduce the perceived risk of getting locked into the dep.
EDIT: Oh, and I read the phlex code because I have similar experience outliving a dep. The library is ~1,600 loc with same again in tests. There's a little metaprogramming in SGML::Elements I dislike but it's not a dealbreaker. The library is small and straightforward enough that I'd be surprised if it broke without going unmaintained 5+ years, and I'd be fine maintaining a private fork for a year or so while migrating off.
> I'm not sold on some of its design like the distinction between views and components
There is no distinction in Phlex. The distinction is only made in generated code in Phlex-Rails where it felt like a sensible way to fit with the existing mental model. Views are technically just components, but they are expected to be HTML documents composed of components and rendered directly from controller actions. You wouldn’t want to render a view inside another component because you’d get another doctype and `<html>` tag. So they are sort of “entry points”.
> There's a little metaprogramming in SGML::Elements I dislike
Many crimes are committed in the name of performance. For example, we have a different code path for standard elements with attributes and content, standard elements with attributes but no content, standard elements with content but no attributes and standard elements with no attributes or content. Not to mention void elements.
This allows us to reduce the number of string concatenation operations required during rendering and is why it renders ~1.5gbps of HTML per core.
I’ve considered having an API-compatible minimal version of Phlex that would be much easier to take on and maintain yourself if it didn’t make all these performance optimisations.
You know, you've told me that about views and components before, and I keep forgetting. I am so used to getting burned by software that has two names for things because a couple months or years later, ah yes, now that you mention it there is this one tiiiiny distinction that happens to be why the app is on fire now.
It would be great if you could expand your explanation of the metaprogramming into a comment in the code. When I read it, I didn't immediately recognize the technique and its tradeoffs, so it seemed like an odd decision rather than an informed one.
Having two versions of phlex would be a strong negative to me. I don't like to see dev teams spread themselves out, it's one more choice I'd have to make when adopting, if switching between them I have new risks that they've slipped out of sync in some way, and it's altogether another odd decision that has to be explained.
What I was trying to say about the code is that I share the previous commenter's experience of "welp I guess if we want that bug fixed we have to click 'fork' on github... while we write up our plan to migrate away". Having had that experience several times, Phlex looks like an acceptable risk.
Other nearby sections have additional personal liabilities. Like Sec 109 (5) (a) probably criminalizes your exact suggested response of walking away from Ofcom's inquiries: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/section/109 It depends on the legal definition of "permits the suppression of... any information required". We'd have to hire a UK lawyer for a confident answer.
All this is a couple sentences in the law. The law is 250 pages long. Ofcom's guidance was rounding 3,000 pages the last time I counted.
If you want to understand the OSA, I think the most accessible and valid writing available is by Neil Brown: https://onlinesafetyact.co.uk/ There's a lot developing as Ofcom continues to publish new rules and ignore questions, so I suggest reading the 'Replies' tab of his fediverse account.
"There's personal liability attached to being the named senior manager ..."
Thank you - that's a missing piece that helps.
"In addition to the "you're not fooling anyone" bit ..."
I don't suggest a corporate veil as a ruse - it's a tool that has a function and I think this is certainly it.
My sense is that enforcement for small operators is unlikely but the potential liabilities skew the risk dramatically. Pointing the initial enforcement at a corporate entity could change that risk assessment.
For those who do not know, Peter (pushcx) operates Lobste.rs, and even though he and the website is US-based, it looks like there will be repercussions too for them (basically geoblocking UK, for reference see https://lobste.rs/s/ukosa1 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43152178)
And then when I pan the map, maybe 90% of the time it doesn't load new results for the visible area. It makes Apple Maps pretty unusable for finding things in unfamiliar areas.
Comments from merged stories do have a label showing where the came from... but only before the merge; afterwards top-level comments are always attached to the primary story which is when things get especially confusing.
If anyone is real curious about the fine details, I've done almost all of this feature work on Lobsters office hours streams: https://push.cx/tags#story-merging I plan to continue that work in about four hours on today's stream so it's a great time to ask questions: https://push.cx/stream
As a (much) smaller community, story merging has been valuable for allowing us to build the critical mass of a good discussion. We also avoid rehashing the basics/easy misunderstandings. It's a pretty similar to dang's motivation about wanting to promote novel discussions. I have joked for a couple years that I'd love to see HN copy the feature so that HN can teach everyone how the feature works.
This is pretty much the premise of Bob Altemeyer's work: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Altemeyer His book The Authoritarians is the one that most elaborates on it, so works that cite or respond to it would probably be exactly what you're looking for.
I don't have a lot of mental model for how this works, but I was surprised to note that it seems to maintain continuity on the shapes of the bushes and brown spots on the grass that track out of frame on the left and then reappear as it pans back into frame.
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