fulton@navion.dec.com (30-Oct-1987 0911) (10/30/87)
!decvax!tektronix!tekcrl!tekgvs!keithe writes: >In article <10281@necntc.NEC.COM> a news-reader writes: >< ><> Well , I've had a few requests for the software (how gratifying) ><> so here it. >< ><All too often postings seem to be introduced in this way! >< ><Not everyone has requested this program or even knows what it is ><supposed to do. > >Then try this: grab it, uudecode, de-arc it and READ THE DOC FILE. >Then you'll know "everything there is to know" about it and can >decide whether to keep it or not. > >You can at least do THAT much to reap the benefits of someone else's >work, can't you? > >Of course if there's no .DOC (or similar) file we're prety much all >S.O.L. anyway, right? > >keith I very much agree with the viewpoint of the persons who complain that it is a nuisance at best when uuencoded items are posted and absolutely no indication is given about what the hell the stuff is. Maybe YOU, Keith, have nothing but free time on your hands to be able to DL at 1200 BAUD many Kilobytes of stuff in the HOPE that once you uudecode and deARC the file that MAYBE there will be a DOC file included that will indicate SOMETHING about the program. I DON'T!!! Therefore, I usually just ignore any such postings. My feeling is that if the poster is such a self- centered idiot that he can't even remember to tell the world what the hell it is that is being posted, the code is probably equally as useless. It's almost as if the person posted as follows: "Well here's the program you've all been waiting for! I'm sure that you all remember my posting that you read several Megabytes ago in your perusing of the usenet, so I will not bore you by repeating ANY information whatsoever about what this program is. Just take all these parts, concatenate them into one big uuencoded file (only several hundred K in size), DL, uudecode, deARC, and, if you're lucky, maybe I included something describing the program." To such posters, I say, FORGET IT!!! NOT ALL OF US HAVE PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES SO THAT WE REMEMBER YOUR PREVIOUS POSTING, AND **** WE CAN'T READ YOUR MIND!!!!!! ***** WAKE UP!!!!! Some may say, "Well, just do the uudecode/deARC on the host machine on which you get usenet." In fact, I do have uudecode for the machine on which I get usenet (VMS VAX), but the deARCer I have for VMS does not work for all flavors of ARC files. Also, I am sure that there are many out there who do not have either uudecode or deARC or both for their host machine. But even if one does have uudecode/deARC capability on the host, IT IS STILL A WASTE OF TIME TO HAVE TO EXTRACT INFO ABOUT A PROGRAM THAT YOU MAY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO USE FOR! So you say, "Well, you shrieking user of all CAPS, nobody is forcing this FREE program down your throat anyway." To which I say, "Yes, but valuable computing resources are being used to post programs about which no description is given. Since money has already been expended to post these programs, they should be posted in a form in which humans can tell with a minimum of time and computing cost what the hell the program is."
brad@looking.UUCP (11/01/87)
I agree absolutely on this. Not just for uuencoded files but for plain readable source files. Most of the sources posted to comp.sources moderated groups have almost no description. If you bother to search through for a readme or doc file, you might find something, although quite often it is in nroff format. Or the article is headed with: "Here's the release of DKUTXZ that I promised you. This is much better than the old DKUTXZ, although watch out if you have a DMC/34." I (and most others) don't have the time to unpack, examine and possibly format doc files of postings and binaries that come along. If you post a program, W R I T E A N A D F O R I T ! ! ! If you want people to use a program, you have to put something in it to say, a) what it does b) Why I would want to do what it does (ie. if it's a variant of another program, why do I want it?) c) What it runs on. And clearly, assuming no prior knowledge of something unless it's a very specific program. I end up passing by most source and binary programs because you can't figure out what they are without a lot of work. They're just wasted net bandwidth (and lots of it) to a lot of people. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
mrc@CAM.UNISYS.COM (Ken Leonard --> ken@oahu.mcl.unisys.com@sdcjove.cam.unisys.com) (11/05/87)
In article <1091@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: > > If you post a program, > > W R I T E A N A D F O R I T ! ! ! > > If you want people to use a program, you have to put something in it > to say... I say, "AMEN".