chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) (09/21/90)
It is apparent that some people who dislike the C News patch scheme have become abusive to Geoff and Henry. Such abuse is stupid and unwarranted, and I will have no truck with it. Unfortunately, however, the abusers have apparently gotten Henry's goat. To wit: According to henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer): >People who moan that they can't tell which old patches they >need don't seem to ever have *looked* at one of our patches. This statement is, to be blunt, hogwash. I have seen every single patch to C News, and I've applied them all. I remain unconvinced that the C News patch system is viable as a long-term solution. (And I do not consider my complaints to be mere "moaning.") As the list of previous patches gets longer and longer, I grow more and more uncomfortable. How easy it might be to miss a patch. How difficult it might be to clean up afterwards, if I make that mistake. >The balance is perhaps slightly against dating, but hardly strong >enough to justify the vehement outpourings on the subject and the >tendency to blame it for all C News's ills. I don't think anyone can reasonably blame patch dating for C News' other problems -- which, I might add, have been few. Nevertheless, many reasonable people believe that patch dating is itself one of the problems of C News. Usenet maintenance is a job that many people do part-time, and often the time they use is their own. Keeping track of an ever-growing list of patch dates is just one more complication. In my opinion, anything that further complicates a Usenet administrator's job is a Bad Thing. -- Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT <chip@tct.uucp>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip>