No Free Lunch
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
You know, when I first started using the Internet, pretty much everything was free. Once you got used to searching, you could find just about anything on the ‘net, all the way up to and including source code for all kinds of things. So, in that spirit, I took some basic source code for some Perl language generation and manipulation scripts and modified them to run on the web. Then I offered them for free, just for the simple fun of having them and letting people use them. But, things have changed. Now, times are tough and hosting a website costs money. That in and of itself isn’t a problem, except the use and abuse of those simple, fun, free scripts have caused so many server usage issues that my webhost is insisting that I either disable them or pay for a higher grade of service that’s more than three times what I’m paying now. So, guess what? Yep, the scripts are going away. Maybe I’ll figure out how to do them with PHP instead of Perl one day, but until then, I have to disable them. Either that, or come up with over $200 a month for a dedicated server.
So, I’m afraid that it comes down to dollars and sense. I don’t have the dollars, so I have to exercise a little sense and take the freebies off-line.
I wish I had a better solution, but I just don’t. I hope you all enjoyed them while they were here, but, now, due to forces beyond my control, I have to shut them down.
UPDATE: For people looking for other free language generation software, you can check out the programs that I either adapted for the web, or that inspired me. Chris Pound’s Language Machines pages held the first Perl code I worked with for many of the scripts and Jeffrey Henning’s amazing LangMaker was instrumental in much of my design. (LangMaker is also available for free at Softpedia.) So, please, don’t give up on your languages! Check out what these guys offer and keep working on your fantasy!
