Practical Internet Groupware

Chapter 1. The Conferencing Dimension

Almost every day of my working life brings a fresh demonstration of the power and utility of Usenet-style conferencing. Here’s a typical example. While logged in to a client’s Solaris box, I triggered this unfamiliar error message: “IO object version 1.20 does not match $1.15.” What that meant, in general, was that something was wrong with a Perl module that I needed for an application I was building. What it meant specifically was a puzzle. I’m no Solaris expert, and Perl wasn’t exhibiting this behavior on my own NT and Linux boxes. I faced the usual choices: fix the problem, or work around it. But which? And in either case, how?

For the last few years, the planetary knowledge base known as the Usenet has been my first line of defense in these situations. Sure enough, plugging the error message into the Deja.com search engine immediately yielded a posting rich with vital clues:

• A Canadian developer named Oleg had run into the same problem.

• Oleg’s problem was also on a Solaris system.

• Oleg was using the same slightly outdated version of Perl that my client’s system had.

Nobody ever answered Oleg’s plea for help. It’s tempting to regard his solitary Usenet posting as a futile act of communication. In fact, it was extremely helpful to me (and possibly to others as well). Oleg’s message enabled me to:

• Confirm that the problem wasn’t specific to my client’s system

• Strengthen a hypothesis that a Perl upgrade might fix the problem

• Contact Oleg by email ...