[IRCServices Coding] Services 5.0 alpha 20 -- you know you want it

[Andrew Church]

>> 2002/02/08	Made ChanServ STATUS command available to normal users.
>this is cool, but if the network allows use of sop/aop/hop/vop it should 
>return "sop" or "aop" or something like that, if the user level falls 
>into the standard value (eg. 50 for aop); this would allow users that 
>know nothing about numeric levels to still understand what privileges 
>someone has.

     This isn't just a problem with STATUS but with a whole bunch of stuff
(help messages etc.) and I'm hoping to get to it eventually.

>> 2002/02/07	Prevent registration of channel names not starting with 
>"#"
>> 		    to avoid problems with ircds with other channel 
>types.
>i got a bunch of help requests by people who kept doing:
>  /cs register channel pass description
>instead of
>  /cs register #channel pass description
>it would be nice if services warned the user to use #channel instead of 
>
>channel (or if it registered #channel if just channel was given)

     I'll think about it.

>> 		    - The channel "#" can no longer be registered or 
>forbidden.
>mmm? why? we used to have it on our network :)

     It causes too many potential problems (as was pointed out, it already
can't be accessed from httpd/redirect), and since several other related
programs have apparently suffered from bugs with that channel, Services
itself may have bugs too; easier to just shut it out entirely than try and
scour 56,000 lines of source code for potential problems.  And yes, I'm
aware I need to filter it out of databases and xml-import too; I meant to
do that for this release but forgot.

>that's all, i have no more critic ideas.. your work is so perfect i 
>can't really find anything bad about it :P

     Well, for one, the module system is horribly designed, but it's the
best I can do with limited time, just like everything else.  I guess all I
can say is look forward to version 6.0, or something (:

  --Andrew Church
    achurch at achurch.org
    http://achurch.org/