In alt.sci.seti Martin 53N 1W <ml_news@ddnospamddml1dd.co.uk.dd> wrote:

Wayne Brown wrote:

In alt.sci.seti Martin 53N 1W <ml_news@ddnospamddml1dd.co.uk.dd> wrote:

What don't you like about Boinc other than that it is "new" and has more 
features?

Number 1 reason:  Installing it would require me to change the way I have
S@H installed.  I want a drop-in replacement for the Classic client that
will require no changes to my custom scripts, setup, etc.

Sorry, but no go there. That is the nature of change. Sometimes 
"backwards compatibility" is too backwards to consider worthwhile.

Yeah, but some of the changes were unnecessary.

You could dream forever that someone goes to the trouble to write some 
sort of emulator for you. Then again, Boinc sounds easier and better.

An awful lot was learnt from s@h-classic. The Science and methods move 
onwards.

Are you telling me that the new "science and methods" couldn't be done
in a single executable called "setiathome" that gets its input from a
file called "work_unit.sah," writes its results to "result.sah," and its
status to "state.sah?"  Because if it did, I could just drop it into my
/usr/local/bin directory and forget about it until the next update came
along, just as I used to do with Classic.

I don't care what the client actually is doing "under the hood."
All I care about is that it presents no external difference to the
system on which it runs.  I often used to let the Classic client run
without paying any attention to it, or even remembering it was there,
for weeks or months at a time.  That's all the attention I'm willing to
give to anything that replaces it.

You must have learnt a few things in putting your various scripts 
together. There's now new possibilities to experiment with...

I grabbed a perl script called multiseti.pl from somewhere on the net
and made minimal modifications to customize it, and changed my /etc/rc*
scripts to run it.  Having done so once, I have no desire ever to
do so again.  (In fact, I haven't even bothered to disable it, so it
still tries to run the Classic client every time I restart my systems.)
I don't like solving the same problem twice.

Number 2 reason:  I have no interest in participating in any of the other
things BOINC is doing.  I don't want to be part of the BOINC project.

No need to. Just attach to s@h only.

Then why the need to deal with the BOINC infrastructure?  I'd still be
a part of BOINC, even if I weren't doing anything but S@H.  I refuse to
have anything to do with BOINC; I won't even visit their website.

Number 3 reason:  I hate the BOINC name.

You are welcome to rename it anything you like! You need only see the 
s@h stuff.

But it still would be part of the BOINC project, which I do not wish to
support or cooperate with in any way whatsoever.

Any one of the reasons above would be enough to keep me from
participating.

Enjoy your spare time :-)

Actually, all my spare CPU cycles are going to the GIMPS project now.
It doesn't require me to mess with BOINC, it has run without any attention
at all from me since I installed it a year ago, and unlike SETI, it's
doing work that I value for its own sake.  So if Berkeley doesn't want
participation from former Classic users enough to provide a decent client
for us, it's fine with me, as my systems have better things to do now.

-- 
Wayne Brown  (HPCC #1104)  | "When your tail's in a crack, you improvise
fwbrown@bellsouth.net      |  if you're good enough.  Otherwise you give
                           |  your pelt to the trapper."
e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0  -- Euler |           -- John Myers Myers, "Silverlock"