page%rishathra@Sun.COM (Bob Page) (05/02/89)
Changes to the sources/binaries groups are not done just because I
feel like it. I agree with "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" when it
comes to these groups. Besides, making changes means I have more work
to do.
Having said that, all shar files are going out with sed lines in front
of them because of many requests to do so. Strange as it may seem to
some of you, some of these postings get distributed by mail, like all
the BITNET sites that get sources & binaries (please bitnetters, don't
contact me about this service, an announcement will be made when it's
appropriate). Very soon (like within a month I'd say) at least one
and possibly two e-mail based archive servers are coming on line. You
will be able to mail a message to a server and get real amiga sources
and binaries via return mail, direct to your mailbox.
However, mailers are funny. They like to do things to mail files.
For instance, if they see 'From' at the beginning of a line, they
prepend a '>'. Not so harmless when you have source like:
From = Location;
(note to folks who get this via mail: I don't have a '>' in front of
the 'F' in the statement above) when suddenly it doesn't compile.
There are more. Leading spaces and tabs can often get squashed down
to one. When files have a single dot (.) on a line, many mailers
take it to mean 'end of message.'
For these and other reasons, the True Data has to be protected from
such ambitious mailers. The sed lines are the way to do this.
Now it's true uuencoded binaries go out with a "M" in the first column
of every line, so the dangers described above won't happen. I
understand how single uuencoded files in comp.binaries.amiga could
simply be fed to uuencode without unsharing first, and I knew this
would mess it up. Let me know if you think sed scripts should be
tossed out of the binaries postings. Send mail, don't post. But
I'll tell you know, sources will continue to go out this way, so it
means there will be two different shar formats - one for the binaries
group and one for the sources group.
Then jwz@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Jamie Zawinski) whined:
>Lack of doc files.
So that's my fault? Hammer on the person who submitted the code. I'm
not going to invent documentation. When it is supplied, I include it,
and make sure a small blurb is at the front so you can make the choice
about downloading it. In the case of wanderer, had you downloaded,
unshar'ed, uudecoded and unzoo'd, you would have seen no
documentation.
USENET is a terrible way to distribute source and binaries for
microcomputers. Given that, we need to find a way to make it work.
If it means changing the format, I can do it. I know you don't like
the save/unshar/cat/uudecode/unzoo process. I dont like the reverse
that I have to do to get the postings out. If you have suggestions on
how to change this, I'm always open to hearing them. Send mail, don't
post.
One thought I had: don't do *anything* to the postings, just filter
them from my mailbox to the newsgroup, in whatever format they come
in. In this case, all I'd be doing would be screening copyrighted
material and random discussion, and maybe supplying an archive name.
HOWEVER, don't start a discussion about it; I'm not going to change
anything yet. Send me mail. If I feel a suggestion is workable
enough for the community, I'll propose it and we can discuss it. OK?
For the record: This is a volunteer activity that I do to help improve
the Amiga community, nobody sponsors this activity.
..bob (moderator)