7 ms·

It wouldn't hurt to tell us what this actually is in the title. "Gnu Mcon- a 100% compatible replacement for Vixie cron" Would be a -way- better title. HN se

It wouldn't hurt to tell us what this actually is in the title. "Gnu Mcon- a 100% compatible replacement for Vixie cron" Would be a -way- better title. HN seems to love to announce random products and updates without telling anyone who doesn't already know what it is. "Gnu Squanchydoo v3 released!" TF is "Squanchydoo"? No idea, not going to bother to find out...

jimnotgym 8y ago
It wouldn't hurt for the website linked to tell us what the package does at least somewhere on the page, I will agree with that much. The first paragraph tells me what it replaces, what language it is coded in and who wrote it...but not what it does.
- suprfnk 8y ago
  Would you not consider cron to be 'general knowledge' in the Hacker News community?
  - s3m4j 8y ago
    I would, but I also would like to know in what way is it different from vixie cron and what impact does it have on the user ?
    - rbanffy 8y ago
      It says exactly that. It's written in Guile (which is inconsequential until it reaches the second part) and can take Scheme code as configuration file (which is very interesting).
      - s3m4j 8y ago
        I read that, but to the end user, that's not really a plus if the "old" syntax works the same. How does mcron's working differ from cron's ? That's what should be on the front page, not the language its written in.
  - jimnotgym 8y ago
    Oh yes I would, but since when was this website only available to the HN community? It is full of mysterious pages like this...hardly making free software accessible. It certainly isn't likely to make me question the choice I made to use the cron that my distro came with.
- blunte 8y ago
  They could have easily used the same text from here: https://www.gnu.org/software/mcron/manual/html_node/Introduction.html#Introduction https://www.gnu.org/software/mcron/manual/html_node/Introduc... Or at a minimum they could have had one little section titled, "What is Mcron?", followed by a link to that introduction page in the docs.

jimnotgym 8y ago

It wouldn't hurt for the website linked to tell us what the package does at least somewhere on the page, I will agree with that much. The first paragraph tells me what it replaces, what language it is coded in and who wrote it...but not what it does.

suprfnk 8y ago
Would you not consider cron to be 'general knowledge' in the Hacker News community?
- s3m4j 8y ago
  I would, but I also would like to know in what way is it different from vixie cron and what impact does it have on the user ?
  - rbanffy 8y ago
    It says exactly that. It's written in Guile (which is inconsequential until it reaches the second part) and can take Scheme code as configuration file (which is very interesting).
    - s3m4j 8y ago
      I read that, but to the end user, that's not really a plus if the "old" syntax works the same. How does mcron's working differ from cron's ? That's what should be on the front page, not the language its written in.
- jimnotgym 8y ago
  Oh yes I would, but since when was this website only available to the HN community? It is full of mysterious pages like this...hardly making free software accessible. It certainly isn't likely to make me question the choice I made to use the cron that my distro came with.
blunte 8y ago
They could have easily used the same text from here: https://www.gnu.org/software/mcron/manual/html_node/Introduction.html#Introduction https://www.gnu.org/software/mcron/manual/html_node/Introduc... Or at a minimum they could have had one little section titled, "What is Mcron?", followed by a link to that introduction page in the docs.