Re: [Fgs-bs] Welcome and feature list

[tps12]

Desired Username wrote:
> I'm not really sure what you mean by "keyed by login
> name" or "stored as filenames".  I know there's a
> username.data file or whatever that stores a user's
> data.  That should stay as-is, because it's nice and
> easy to find and modify a user from the CL. 
> Internally, I saw the users in a big array.  If that
> array is always in the same order, the UID is the
> array position, right?

If I'd know you were going to reply to the list, I would have explained 
why I think UIDs would be better.

1. Using usernames for file names is convenient, but it limits legal 
usernames to legal filenames. Currently, usernames are limited to 
alphanumeric characters, and the main impediment to loosening the 
requirement is that it's hard for the server to know which special 
characters are illegal and what the maximum filename length is on the 
filesystem.

2. It looks like the array only contains logged-in users and is filled 
in order of login (a user who logs and her data are stored in the first 
free array slot). So array position is not a reliable key.

Keying users by UID would replace username.data files with uid.data 
files. Fast lookup by name would still be possible by building a 
name->UID map at startup and maintaining it during execution. CL editing 
would then require grepping for the username (which could be slow, 
depending on the number of users), or the map data could be stored in a 
file.

> Yeah.  Also good for scripted testing.  Or bot
> programmerizing.  That's another feature.  Support
> bots.  Of course, that should be automatic--anything a
> client can do a bot can do.  Just keep in mind that we
> shouldn't do anything that would somehow exclude bots.

/me scratches Turing Test at login

> Hmm...email archives aren't going to be useful as a
> place to keep track of features unless we mark them
> somehow to easily search for them later.
>
> FEETURE: bot support