ralph@laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) (05/13/91)
In article <g5No26w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: | I has recently been drawn to my attention that said software is generating | Usenet Date: headers with the year in full -- that is, 17 Jun 1991 instead | of 17 Jun 91. | | THE NEW "IMPROVED" C-NEWS WILL SILENTLY DISCARD ALL SUCH ARTICLES, WITHOUT | WARNING THE POSTER. | | mathew Is this true!! C-News should be corrected if this is the case. -- Ralph P. Sobek Disclaimer: The above ruminations are my own. ralph@laas.fr Addresses are ordered by importance. ralph@laas.uucp, or ...!uunet!laas!ralph If all else fails, try: sobek@eclair.Berkeley.EDU =============================================================================== THINK: Due to IMF & World Bank policies 100 million Latin American children are living, eating, and sleeping in the streets -- Le Monde Diplomatique
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (05/14/91)
In article <RALPH.91May13185018@orion.laas.fr> ralph@laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) writes: >| I has recently been drawn to my attention that said software is generating >| Usenet Date: headers with the year in full -- that is, 17 Jun 1991 instead >| of 17 Jun 91. >| >| THE NEW "IMPROVED" C-NEWS WILL SILENTLY DISCARD ALL SUCH ARTICLES, WITHOUT >| WARNING THE POSTER. >| >Is this true!! C-News should be corrected if this is the case. Totally incorrect. C News generates four-digit years everywhere and accepts them everywhere. If articles are being discarded, it's because of some other mistake. (People never seem to bother reading the specs before they devise their own whacko date format.) -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
) (05/14/91)
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > Totally incorrect. C News generates four-digit years everywhere and accepts > them everywhere. Dearie me! RFC1036 says that the format MUST be acceptable to RFC822. And RFC822 says: | 5. DATE AND TIME SPECIFICATION | | 5.1. SYNTAX | | date-time = [ day "," ] date time ; dd mm yy | ; hh:mm:ss zzz | | day = "Mon" / "Tue" / "Wed" / "Thu" | / "Fri" / "Sat" / "Sun" | | date = 1*2DIGIT month 2DIGIT ; day month year | ; e.g. 20 Jun 82 The year is a 2DIGIT. So four-digit years should NOT be generated. So not only does C News have the gall to throw away people's postings without even warning them, on the grounds that they contain bad headers; it actually generates bad headers itself! > If articles are being discarded, it's because of some > other mistake. Look, I don't care what the mistake is or who made it. C News should not discard an article unless it is unable to correct the header; and if it does discard an article, it should at least attempt to warn the poster. Here's an example of one of the "naughty" date headers which was causing C News sites around the world to throw away half my articles without telling me: Date: Mon 11 Mar 1991 00:32 GMT Now, why exactly did C News throw the articles away? Was it because there's a comma missing after the day name? That's the only other thing wrong with that date according to RFC822. If it *was* the missing comma, then I apologise for assuming that it was the non-RFC822 4-digit year which was at fault. I don't apologise for the flaming, though. A missing comma in the date is such a simple-to-allow-for and likely-to-occur error that I still think C News is VERY wrong to drop articles because of it. > (People never seem to bother reading the specs before they > devise their own whacko date format.) Pot. Kettle. Bang. mathew
brendan@cs.widener.edu (Brendan Kehoe) (05/15/91)
In <RALPH.91May13185018@orion.laas.fr>, ralph@laas.fr writes: >In article <g5No26w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >| THE NEW "IMPROVED" C-NEWS WILL SILENTLY DISCARD ALL SUCH ARTICLES, WITHOUT >| WARNING THE POSTER. > >Is this true!! C-News should be corrected if this is the case. I just took a perfectly good article, changed 91 to 1991, and pushed it thru relaynews. No problem. -- Brendan Kehoe - Widener Sun Network Manager - brendan@cs.widener.edu Widener University in Chester, PA A Bloody Sun-Dec War Zone "Visualize a dream; look for it in the present tense -- a greater calm than before. If you persist in your efforts, you can achieve...dream control."
eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) (05/15/91)
ralph@laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) writes: >In article <g5No26w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >| I has recently been drawn to my attention that said software is generating >| Usenet Date: headers with the year in full -- that is, 17 Jun 1991 instead >| of 17 Jun 91. >| >| THE NEW "IMPROVED" C-NEWS WILL SILENTLY DISCARD ALL SUCH ARTICLES, WITHOUT >| WARNING THE POSTER. >| >| mathew >Is this true!! C-News should be corrected if this is the case. It's not true. Perhaps this false report stemmed from a bug in old versions of the NN news reader, which mishandled four-digit dates. This bug was fixed starting with NN version 6.4.13, released in February. I wouldn't be surprised if other news software has similar bugs, because the RFC standards are a little disorganized here. It's not immediately obvious that RFC 1036, which specifies the format of Usenet articles, is amended by RFC 1123, which adds (and recommends) four-digit years.
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (05/15/91)
In article <DByX213w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >> ... C News generates four-digit years everywhere and accepts >> them everywhere. > >Dearie me! RFC1036 says that the format MUST be acceptable to RFC822. And >RFC822 says [two-digit years] RFC1123 amends RFC822 to allow, and indeed strongly encourage, four digits. You have no business reading *any* of the major RFCs these days without first consulting 1122 and 1123. >... C News should not >discard an article unless it is unable to correct the header How do you "correct" a header? You can attempt to repair it, but you're as likely to get it wrong as right. We've seen too much chaos caused by well-intentioned attempts to "correct" headers; we refuse to participate. >and if it does >discard an article, it should at least attempt to warn the poster. How? Every scheme we could think of has flaws you could drive a truck through -- either it doesn't work (you think you can reliably get mail to him based on news headers?) or it doesn't scale (being notified of your typo by hundreds of sites gets old fast, and can be real-$ expensive). It is not safe for a remote site to make *any* attempt to notify a poster, even if can reliably do so; there is too much potential for more-or-less innocent victims to be inundated with mail and (to add injury to insult) have to pay for its transmission. > Date: Mon 11 Mar 1991 00:32 GMT >Now, why exactly did C News throw the articles away? Was it because there's >a comma missing after the day name? Yes. >> (People never seem to bother reading the specs before they >> devise their own whacko date format.) >Pot. Kettle. Bang. No potheads :-) here. *We* read the RFCs, including 1123. -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) (05/15/91)
mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes:
C News should not discard an article unless it is unable to
correct the header; and if it does discard an article, it
should at least attempt to warn the poster.
I for one do not want to be warned about articles discarded by sites
all over the world. I get enough such grief whenever I send mail to
improperly configured mail exploders that send error reports back to me
instead of to the mailing list's maintainers. Warnings should be sent
only to people that can do something about the problem. C News logs a
warning for the site's maintainer to read, a method far superior to the
misguided policy of return to sender.
Erik E. Fair's ``Case of the Replicated Errors: An Internet Postmaster's
Horror'' in RISKS DIGEST 11:66 (13 May 1991) suggests the kind of havoc
that might ensue if C News mailed warnings to posters.) (05/15/91)
I wrote: > henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > > Totally incorrect. C News generates four-digit years everywhere and accept > > them everywhere. > > Dearie me! RFC1036 says that the format MUST be acceptable to RFC822. And > RFC822 says: [...that 4-digit years are Not Allowed...] Someone has already pointed out to me that RFC822 and RFC1036 have, to some extent, been superceded. This is fair enough, but I suspect that there's a lot of software out there which only understands RFC822/1036, so it's still a bad idea for C News to generate headers not in RFC822 format. And this next point of mine still stands: > Look, I don't care what the mistake is or who made it. C News should not > discard an article unless it is unable to correct the header; and if it does > discard an article, it should at least attempt to warn the poster. I now believe that the articles were being dropped because the Date: field said Date: Wed 15 May 1991 13:54 GMT instead of Date: Wed, 15 May 1991 13:54 GMT And as I said in my previous article: > If it *was* the missing comma, then I apologise for assuming that it was the > non-RFC822 4-digit year which was at fault. I don't apologise for the > flaming, though. A missing comma in the date is such a simple-to-allow-for > and likely-to-occur error that I still think C News is VERY wrong to drop > articles because of it. So you can stop mailing me with pedantic comments about last week's revision to RFC4943b allowing dates in Roman Numerals, and get down to discussing the REAL issue, which is the stupidity and rudeness of C News's behaviour. mathew
cudep@warwick.ac.uk (Ian Dickinson) (05/16/91)
In article <9DoZ29w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >So you can stop mailing me with pedantic comments about last week's revision >to RFC4943b allowing dates in Roman Numerals, and get down to discussing the >REAL issue, which is the stupidity and rudeness of C News's behaviour. Why don't you just shut up and go back to B news if it's such a problem? Certainly not worth posting email over. -- \/ato /'\ /`\ Ian Dickinson TED KALDIS FOR PRESIDENT! /^^^\/^^^\ vato@warwick.ac.uk /TWIN/TEATS\ @c=GB@o=University of Warwick@ou=Computing Services@cn=Ian Dickinson / \
mrm@sceard.Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy) (05/17/91)
In article <DByX213w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: [...] > >Look, I don't care what the mistake is or who made it. C News should not >discard an article unless it is unable to correct the header; and if it does >discard an article, it should at least attempt to warn the poster. Others have pointed out that it might not be polite to a poster's site-mates, site administration, or upstream E-mail connections to flood the poster with thousands of warning messages. I don't want to pay for sending those thousands of messages. I'd much rather wade through the thousands of lines of cruft in a log file than send thousands of mail messages. Then I could even call the poster on the telephone and offer to help. Oh, well. [...] >If it *was* the missing comma, then I apologise for assuming that it was the >non-RFC822 4-digit year which was at fault. I don't apologise for the >flaming, though. A missing comma in the date is such a simple-to-allow-for >and likely-to-occur error that I still think C News is VERY wrong to drop >articles because of it. Yeah. I thought that FORTRAN compilers ought to be able to correct DO 10 I=1 15 to DO 10 I=1,15 too. (To the Severely Humor-Impaired TwitS, please note that the last section was, in fact, a sarcastic response.) -- Mike Murphy mrm@Sceard.COM ucsd!sceard!mrm +1 619 598 5874
) (05/17/91)
cudep@warwick.ac.uk (Ian Dickinson) writes: > > Why don't you just shut up and go back to B news if it's such a problem? Because I don't have any choice. It's people at OTHER SITES running C news who are causing postings to be lost unnecessarily. If I could get them to go back to B news, I would! (Although I think a fixed version of C News would be better.) mathew
ebd@fang.ATT.COM (Elliot B Dierksen) (05/18/91)
From article <9DoZ29w164w@mantis.co.uk>, by mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!): > So you can stop mailing me with pedantic comments about last week's revision > to RFC4943b allowing dates in Roman Numerals, and get down to discussing the > REAL issue, which is the stupidity and rudeness of C News's behaviour. As I recall, Cnews is freeware and nobody forces you to use it. So go back to Bnews if you hate Cnews so much!! I happen to love Cnews, especially after administering 2 Bnews sites and would NEVER switch! EBD -- Elliot Dierksen "It's such a fine line between clever and stupid." -- "This is Spinal Tap" Work) ebd@fang.att.com (407) 660-3377 Home) elliot@alfred.UUCP (407) 290-9744
) (05/20/91)
ebd@fang.ATT.COM (Elliot B Dierksen) writes: > From article <9DoZ29w164w@mantis.co.uk>, by mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST D > > So you can stop mailing me with pedantic comments about last week's revisio > > to RFC4943b allowing dates in Roman Numerals, and get down to discussing th > > REAL issue, which is the stupidity and rudeness of C News's behaviour. > > As I recall, Cnews is freeware and nobody forces you to use it. So go back to > Bnews if you hate Cnews so much!! I happen to love Cnews, especially after > administering 2 Bnews sites and would NEVER switch! For the last time, I AM NOT RUNNING C NEWS. I'm not running B news either. The problem is NOT to do with this site dropping articles posted here. It is to do with other sites around the world dropping articles from this site without telling this site that anything is wrong. mathew
cudep@warwick.ac.uk (Ian Dickinson) (05/24/91)
In article <Jei425w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >Because I don't have any choice. It's people at OTHER SITES running C news >who are causing postings to be lost unnecessarily. If I could get them to go >back to B news, I would! (Although I think a fixed version of C News would >be better.) No it's not "people at OTHER SITES running C news who are causing postings to be lost unnecessarily". It's YOU, at YOUR SITE, running SOFTWARE WHICH GENERATES BAD HEADERS UNNECESSARILY. Nuff sed, -- \/ato /'\ /`\ Ian Dickinson TED KALDIS FOR PRESIDENT! /^^^\/^^^\ vato@warwick.ac.uk /TWIN/TEATS\ @c=GB@o=University of Warwick@ou=Computing Services@cn=Ian Dickinson / \
cudep@warwick.ac.uk (Ian Dickinson) (05/24/91)
In article <kV69233w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >The problem is NOT to do with this site dropping articles posted here. It is >to do with other sites around the world dropping articles from this site >without telling this site that anything is wrong. Well how come it got to me then? I run C news and I drop bad articles, and so does your feed. Sounds like you fixed your software to me. Which was one of the main points of the exercise. (Hopefully this ends my involvement in this issue) -- \/ato /'\ /`\ Ian Dickinson TED KALDIS FOR PRESIDENT! /^^^\/^^^\ vato@warwick.ac.uk /TWIN/TEATS\ @c=GB@o=University of Warwick@ou=Computing Services@cn=Ian Dickinson / \
he@sup.stollmann.de (Helge Oldach) (05/25/91)
mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: | For the last time, I AM NOT RUNNING C NEWS. I'm not running B news either. | The problem is NOT to do with this site dropping articles posted here. It is | to do with other sites around the world dropping articles from this site | without telling this site that anything is wrong. Then you'd better try to get conformant with the world rather than arguing about the world not getting conformant with you. What use has a standard that isn't obeyed? Helge -- Helge Oldach he@stollmann.de he@sephh.hanse.de
) (05/27/91)
cudep@warwick.ac.uk (Ian Dickinson) writes: > No it's not "people at OTHER SITES running C news who are causing postings > to be lost unnecessarily". > > It's YOU, > at YOUR SITE, > running SOFTWARE WHICH GENERATES BAD HEADERS UNNECESSARILY. I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. It makes mistakes. It causes typos. When it causes typos in headers, C News might dump the article. I maintain that this is wrong. mathew
) (05/27/91)
he@sup.stollmann.de (Helge Oldach) writes: > mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: > | The problem is NOT to do with this site dropping articles posted here. It i > | to do with other sites around the world dropping articles from this site > | without telling this site that anything is wrong. > > Then you'd better try to get conformant with the world rather than arguing > about the world not getting conformant with you. What use has a standard > that isn't obeyed? Go back and read the thread. You will note that I am arguing (a) That non-conforming software be fixed, and (b) That errors (which may be caused by humans) be reported. It is (b) that the C News crowd are objecting to. mathew
steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington) (05/28/91)
[In article <9oXL328w164w@mantis.co.uk>,
mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes ... ]
> cudep@warwick.ac.uk (Ian Dickinson) writes:
>> No it's not "people at OTHER SITES running C news who are causing postings
>> to be lost unnecessarily".
>>
>> It's YOU,
>> at YOUR SITE,
>> running SOFTWARE WHICH GENERATES BAD HEADERS UNNECESSARILY.
>
> I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. It makes mistakes. It causes
> typos. When it causes typos in headers, C News might dump the article.
>
> I maintain that this is wrong.
If Rodney's UUCP modules let you have access to header fields that you
have no business messing with, then Rodney's user interface is poorly
designed. It's asking for trouble, and it's certain to get it.
I'm sure it has plenty of company in that regard -- for all I know, common
Unix posting software may be equally deficient; I don't use it -- but
expecting a couple of hundred thousand other sites to take responsibility
for fixing the mistakes and reporting the errors isn't an appropriate way
of dealing with the problem.
I'm posting this message from an Atari ST, too, and I have *never* sent
out a bad header. I wrote my own posting software and I don't allow myself
to have access to anything other than the contents of Newsgroups:,
Followup-to: and Subject: fields. Letting humans mess around with any
other fields encourages errors and forgeries.
This discussion has been enlightening in that it has pointed out that the
contents of Newgroups: (and I presume Followup-to:) cannot include spaces
if multiple newsgroups are listed. I knew that, and it wouldn't occur to
me to insert one, but somebody else might. So when I get around to it,
I'll go back into my postnews.c and insert code to parse and clean up
those lines in the event that they're incorrect. I'm certainly not going
to demand that Henry's software fix mistakes that my software allowed onto
the network.
----
Steve Yelvington, Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota, USA / steve@thelake.mn.orgrickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) (05/28/91)
In article <9oXL328w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. It makes mistakes. It causes >typos. When it causes typos in headers, C News might dump the article. > >I maintain that this is wrong. I am stuck with the brain I have too. It also makes mistakes. Because Cnews sets high standards, it warns me about them so that I can correct the problem and repost. Likewise, because of the Cnews strict adherence to published standards, I am virtually assured that once the posting is accepted locally it will meet all standards imposed by other sites. I maintain that this is right. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science <rickert@cs.niu.edu> Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115 +1-815-753-6940
peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (05/28/91)
rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes: > I am stuck with the brain I have too. It also makes mistakes. Because > Cnews sets high standards, it warns me about them so that I can correct > the problem and repost. Likewise, because of the Cnews strict adherence > to published standards, I am virtually assured that once the posting is > accepted locally it will meet all standards imposed by other sites. > I maintain that this is right. This is a red herring. Nobodyy is upset about how C News treats locally posted articles. It's how it treats ones that arrive remotely. You know, if it were just to treat undecipherable timezones as GMT that'd pretty much solve the problem. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' Taronga Park BBS +1 713 568 0480 2400/n/8/1 Taronga Park. 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf, today?"
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (05/28/91)
In article <5JL4MZ3@taronga.hackercorp.com> peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >You know, if it were just to treat undecipherable timezones as GMT that'd >pretty much solve the problem. If I'm not mistaken, that's exactly what it does. There is so much chaos in timezone abbreviations that just ignoring unknown ones is the only safe thing to do. Note, however, that it must be a *timezone abbreviation* for it to be ignored. Inscrutable garbage, e.g. an attempt to use an RFC822 comment in RFC1036 where it is not legal, is a different story. -- "We're thinking about upgrading from | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
) (05/28/91)
rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes: > In article <9oXL328w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) > >I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. It makes mistakes. It causes > >typos. When it causes typos in headers, C News might dump the article. > > I am stuck with the brain I have too. It also makes mistakes. Because > Cnews sets high standards, it warns me about them so that I can correct > the problem and repost. Likewise, because of the Cnews strict adherence > to published standards, I am virtually assured that once the posting is > accepted locally it will meet all standards imposed by other sites. Wonderful. I'm so pleased for you. Now, what about those of us who CANNOT run C news? Telling me that C News does not generate postings which it will subsequently throw away is unsurprising and unhelpful. mathew
karish@mindcraft.com (Chuck Karish) (05/29/91)
In article <9oXL328w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. It makes mistakes. It causes >typos. When it causes typos in headers, C News might dump the article. > >I maintain that this is wrong. Mathew, why not complain to your OS provider, who have apparently left an inadequate DWIM module in your system's console driver? While they're fixing that, I suggest that you refrain from typing. -- Chuck Karish karish@mindcraft.com Mindcraft, Inc. (415) 323-9000
berry@idi.com (Berry Kercheval) (06/01/91)
In article <9oXL328w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. It makes mistakes. It causes >typos. When it causes typos in headers, C News might dump the article. > >I maintain that this is wrong. I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. It makes mistakes. It causes typos. When it causes typos in C programs, the compiler might dump the object file. I maintain that this is wrong. --berry P.S. :-) for the smiley impaired. -- BErry KErcheval :: Intelligent Decisions Inc.:: reply to berry@lll-crg.llnl.gov
aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul D. Crowley) (06/01/91)
In article <1991Jun1.000558.7777@idi.com> berry@idi.com (Berry Kercheval) writes: >In article <9oXL328w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >>I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. It makes mistakes. It causes >>typos. When it causes typos in headers, C News might dump the article. >> >>I maintain that this is wrong. >I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. It makes mistakes. It >causes typos. When it causes typos in C programs, the compiler might >dump the object file. > >I maintain that this is wrong. Get your analogies right. It should be "...dump the source code." Now ask how happy you'd be about that. After all, it's your fault for making the mistake in the software! It's worth noting that the slightly insane attitude taken by many posters that software should punish users for making mistakes does not seem to be shared by the authors of Cnews themselves, who seem to be genuinely interested in trying to fix the problem without the attendant problems to do with mail. So, we all know you're just a little peeved Mathew, but how about being real sweet to that nice Mr Spencer 'till we can find a fix? There are a couple of proposals that are almost there (the probablistic mail system and the control message system) so how about we ignore the flamewar for a bit and try and work on the practical aspects? ____ \/ o\ Paul Crowley aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk \ / /\__/ Part straight. Part gay. All queer. \/ "I say we kill him and eat his brain." "That's not the solution to _every_ problem, you know!" -- Rudy Rucker
nreadwin@micrognosis.co.uk (Neil Readwin) (06/02/91)
In article <1991Jun1.000558.7777@idi.com>, berry@idi.com (Berry Kercheval) writes: |> I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. [...] When it causes typos |> in C programs, the compiler might dump the object file. Stretching a flawed analogy to breaking point ... As I understand it, the standards do not mandate that the compiler provide any diagnostics, but I have never used a C compiler that didn't give some indication that it had failed to compile the program. A few even give a useful pointer to what's wrong. On the other hand, I've never seen a compiler mail diagnostics to the author when someone else tries to compile his/her code :-) Phone: +44 71 528 8282 E-mail: nreadwin@micrognosis.co.uk Everything is a cause for sorrow that my mind or body has made
mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) (06/03/91)
aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul D. Crowley) writes: > So, we all know you're just a little peeved > Mathew, but how about being real sweet to that nice Mr Spencer 'till we > can find a fix? As I've said elsewhere, I'm having a very reasonable discussion with him via E-mail. > There are a couple of proposals that are almost there > (the probablistic mail system and the control message system) so how > about we ignore the flamewar for a bit and try and work on the practical > aspects? Mainly because the "C News is Perfect" crowd seem to ignore the sensible suggestions and just say either "You can't send mail from every site to the poster" or "It's the poster's fault for using bad software", thinking that that settles the issue. As long as people keep coming up with false analogies and spurious justifications for unnecessarily vindictive behaviour, I'll keep responding. mathew
urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) (06/14/91)
In news.software.b, article <1991May28.151328.21097@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: < In article <5JL4MZ3@taronga.hackercorp.com> peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: < >You know, if it were just to treat undecipherable timezones as GMT that'd < >pretty much solve the problem. < < If I'm not mistaken, that's exactly what it does. There is so much chaos < in timezone abbreviations that just ignoring unknown ones is the only safe < thing to do. Note, however, that it must be a *timezone abbreviation* for < it to be ignored. Inscrutable garbage, e.g. an attempt to use an RFC822 < comment in RFC1036 where it is not legal, is a different story. <6313530@mkist.ruhr.sub.org> unparsable Date: `10 Jun 91 18:60:58 MEST' <A0b6tnji@hiss.han.de> unparsable Date: `Mon, 10 Jun 1991 22:26:08 MET DST' <A0b6tph2@hiss.han.de> unparsable Date: `Mon, 10 Jun 1991 23:07:52 MET DST' According to Henry, shouldn't at least the first of these be acceptable? I don't know if " DST" is standard or not, but it's present in numerous /etc/zoneinfo/* files. Ditto four-letter timezones. -- Matthias Urlichs -- urlichs@smurf.sub.org -- urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de /(o\ Humboldtstrasse 7 - 7500 Karlsruhe 1 - FRG -- +49-721-621127(0700-2330) \o)/
moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes) (06/15/91)
urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes: ><6313530@mkist.ruhr.sub.org> unparsable Date: `10 Jun 91 18:60:58 MEST' > ... >According to Henry, shouldn't at least the first of these be acceptable? 18:60?! ^^ >I don't know if " DST" is standard or not, but it's present in numerous >/etc/zoneinfo/* files. Ditto four-letter timezones. The parser insists that the timezones be a single word with no whitespace in it. [EMCW]ETDST is acceptable, MEST is acceptable. Random text is acceptable, for that matter, it'll just result in the wrong time. Given the complete lack of standardization of alphabetic timezones, the parser does the best it can and ignores the rest. If you have new timezones, please mail them to c-news@zoo.toronto.edu. (Note: in the event of conflicts, existing zones in the table will probably be left as they are) Better yet, lobby your vendor to switch to the [+-]HHMM notation for timezones. It really is more meaningful, since most people will be able to recognize the HHMM for their location and will at least get a sense of where in the world the article comes from for other timezones. Mark.
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (06/18/91)
In article <HCC-NX+@smurf.sub.org> urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes: ><6313530@mkist.ruhr.sub.org> unparsable Date: `10 Jun 91 18:60:58 MEST' ><A0b6tnji@hiss.han.de> unparsable Date: `Mon, 10 Jun 1991 22:26:08 MET DST' ><A0b6tph2@hiss.han.de> unparsable Date: `Mon, 10 Jun 1991 23:07:52 MET DST' > >According to Henry, shouldn't at least the first of these be acceptable? The first is okay except for that "60". The other two have garbage (the "DST") after the timezone. A timezone abbreviation is one word, not two. -- "We're thinking about upgrading from | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry