KEN%ORION.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu (Kenneth Ng) (10/27/87)
> >From: Bruce Becker <BECKER%HUMBER.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu> > >1). current versions of uuencode substitute '`' (accent) for " " (space) > in order to deal with problems of blank-stripping - it should not actually > matter for "EOL" strippers, but multiple-blank-collapsers would cause > problems... >4). The "gist" of what i'm saying is - please try to build on the existing > universe of utilities as much as you can - that way the "UNix-ness" is > most fully accounted for... Some may say that MINIX now provides the chance > to redo that which Unix tried poorly at - perhaps what you propose falls > into such a category, but I'd like to see more analysis as to what needs > improvement/replacement, etc... >5). So this is an invitation for discussion about the "growth" & enhancement > of MINIX - are my concerns to "bureaucratic", or is such caution useful? > Ken's in the process of putting out something that's going to be a fair > amount of work - I hope he can get as much advice as possible up front... > >Cheers, BBecker Humber College Etobicoke, Ont. Responding in order: 1> Glad to see that space isn't used anymore in uuencode. I hope the square brackets aren't used either, since IBM provided a "fee-ture" where there are two possible characters for each bracket. (Don't think I won't flame IBM just because I work on one!) Personally, I'd feel a lot safer using only upper and lower case, the numbers, and '.' and ','. I'm pretty sure they exist on all the major character sets (unless someone is still using BAUDOT), and there aren't any alternate representations of these characters. The set I chose is especially nice because it adds up to 64, a power of 2. Sure, I can make use of various utilities available under Unix, but what about the rest of the world? (I plan to ignore the flames that say the rest of the world doesn't count.) But even if I run it under Unix, I tend to remove bugs from programs. I've been flamed many times by people who write programs that depend on these bugs being there. I've also been flamed by those who say that if I change things I must keep them backwards compatible, bugs (they call them 'fee-tures') and all! Therefore what I'm trying to do is make a clean break from all that nonsense. I do hope the program I'm writing will be helpful to others on the Minix and other mailing lists. Hopefully it will be able to navigate through the major mailers of the world without its contents getting MUNGED. Lastly, the environment I'm aiming this program (which doesn't have a name yet) is the following: New Jersey Institute of Technology presently has quite a variaty of computers and associated operating systems. There are DEC, IBM, HP, AT&T, PC, Perkin Elmer, and a few other hardware units on this campus. There are a host of operating systems here, various communication, file transfer, and mailing programs, many with bugs. There is also a planned joint venture with people in Denmark, which requires that some considerations must be made about character sets as well. I'd like a program I can install on all these machines and keep it as integrated into the local OS as possible. (Again, I plan to ignore the "just run Unix" flames.) After working through all of this, I have fair hopes that it will be able to work with the systems outside of this place. P.S. Thanks for the advice I've been getting on some mailers, in some cases the 'fee-tures' are rather interesting. PPS: Sorry, I no longer have that 'share' file that renames all the files in my directory backwards. It was pretty neat because it was also recursive: eg '/user/ken/compress/compress.c' became '/user/ken/sserpmoc/c.sserpmoc'.
burrell@dalcsug.UUCP (10/28/87)
A couple of weeks ago someone posted the minix version 1.2 difs. Unfortinatly
when I unshared these files I found the had not traveled through the net in the best of shape.
Therefor what I am asking is that someone out there who did manage to get a
decent copy archive them and them uuencode them and mail them to me.
Thank's in advance
Gary R. Burrell
Note As I'm not sure of my exact address I hope it can be gotten of the
Mail Header. If not would one person (only one) please post to comp.os.minix to
tell me and i will Find out my exact address and repost it.