[R] R project web site

[Gavin Simpson]

On Sun, 2008-08-24 at 21:03 +0530, ohri2007 at gmail.com wrote:
> Admin please check logs for denial of service attack.the website is
> anciently designed. Period

What, pray tell, do ancient web design and susceptibility to DoS attacks
have to do with one another? Just because the R Project website hasn't
lept, both feet, into the web 2.0 era (nor should it) doesn't mean the
underlying servers are vulnerable to DoS!

The access problems people have described could have been a DoS, or they
could have been downtime due to University network upgrades etc, or
problems with the servers themselves (relocation, upgrades, maintenance)
or power problems. None of which have anything to do with the use of a
HTML 4.0 designed website.

There are good reasons why the site doesn't use the latest, fancy web
tech; improved performance (or reduce need for high powered servers) and
as the site is mirrored to many volunteer servers around the world, the
low tech reduces the burden on the admins of the mirrors, are just two
that come to mind.

Could the site do with a graphical spruce-up and removal of frames? Yes,
IMHO, but then again I haven't put my money where my mouth is and
stepped up to do the work on the CSS and HTML redesign. Much work *has*
been done recently to improve the functionality of the R websites, esp
on CRAN. Remember that this is all done by a small band of volunteers,
who are to be thanked for their time and efforts.

Please do not denigrate the works of others with non-constructive
criticism, and especially without offers to improve matters.

Gavin

> 
> ajay
> www.decisionstats.com
> 
> On 8/24/08, Jim Lemon <jim at bitwrit.com.au> wrote:
> > On Sun, 2008-08-24 at 00:21 -0700, J Dougherty wrote:
> >> Is anyone else encountering trouble viewing the basic www.r-project.org
> >> page?
> >> Or has it been changed recently so that google hasn't kept up?  I find I
> >> can
> >> access the mirror of the CRAN page at http://www.maths.bris.ac.uk/R/, none
> >> of
> >> the *.org pages.  Nor can I jump to the R homepage from the CRAN mirror.
> >>
> > Yes, I couldn't get cran.r-project.org last night, but thought it was
> > just a short downtime. Can't raise it tonight, either.
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> >
> 
>