[pmwiki-users] Why all this zapping?

Ben Stallings Ben at InterdependentWeb.com
Mon Apr 30 11:57:55 CDT 2007


For the record, since this seems to be gang-up-on-Dan day, I'd just like 
to say that I, for one, do not find the difference between Acme and ZAP 
one bit more confusing than the difference between Apple and Macintosh, 
or between my ISP and the Internet access it provides, or between PmWiki 
and the particular wiki installation on the site I'm currently working on.

We deal with brand names every day, folks.  Acme appears to be a brand 
name (like Apple), while ZAP is clearly a product (like Macintosh).  Is 
that clear enough?  I think it might actually be more confusing if the 
recipe itself were called Acme, because then the product would be called 
by what we know to be a brand name... imagine if Ford released a model 
of car called the Ford!  Calling the recipe Acme ZAP would be clearer 
than the current convention of using the two names interchangeably.

I do agree that it's a shame zapsite.org is just a forwarding domain and 
doesn't keep its domain name when you visit the site, but that may be a 
limitation of Dan's hosting provider, and none of us is really in a 
position to ask Dan to switch providers just to suit us.  If we were 
giving him money, that would be different!  Shall we take up a 
collection?  Or perhaps one of us operates a hosting provider and would 
like to donate the space to put our minds at ease, rather than just griping?

And as for the confusion among Dan and Caveman and their coyote 
associate, perhaps the Crisses can offer them some advice on how to 
present a united front to the world.  :-)

I've been told to "lighten up" enough times in my life to know that 
simply being told rarely does much good, so I won't follow Dan's example 
and ask you to do that.  I also fear he's doing his reputation more harm 
than good by repeatedly saying the recipe is unreliable and 
untrustworthy and something to be cautious of, when it is not -- it's 
just developed very quickly, and while it's been an exciting ride, in 
retrospect that's really nothing to apologize for.

Instead of "lightening up," I think it might be enough if we could all 
just acknowledge that Dan has done an awful lot of work in a very short 
time to produce a useful product (and unlike his detractors, I can say 
that I've used it and am actively using it, and it is, in fact, very 
useful) and has the right to call it whatever the heck he wants without 
having his motives second-guessed.  Once you get it installed, it DOES 
NOT MATTER what it's called or what the programmer is calling himself 
today.  What matters is that the code works as advertised, and that the 
programmer is very responsive to questions and suggestions.

So thank you, Dan.  For most of us, confusion is a temporary state. 
--Ben S.



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