rsmith@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Rusty Smith, MACC) (05/31/89)
Could someone shed a little light on the use of zoo vs. arc. I used zoo on the new programs yesterday. Then for the fun of it I tried zoo and pkarc to compress and extract the same files. Zoo was noticeable slower and the file size difference was only a few percent smaller. What is it's advantage ? Rusty Smith Internet: rsmith@vms.macc.wisc.edu MACC Data Communications Bitnet: rsmith@wiscmacc (608) 263-6307 Univ. of Wisconsin @ Madison
mr@rat.indiana.edu (Michael Regoli) (06/01/89)
In article <1793@dogie.macc.wisc.edu> Rusty Smith writes: | Could someone shed a little light on the use of zoo vs. arc. I used | zoo on the new programs yesterday. Then for the fun of it I tried zoo | and pkarc to compress and extract the same files. Zoo was noticeable | slower and the file size difference was only a few percent smaller. | What is it's advantage ? ][ here we go AGAIN, folks! -- michael regoli mr@rat.indiana.edu regoli@iubacs.bitnet ...rutgers!iuvax!rat!mr
heiby@falkor.UUCP (Ron Heiby) (06/01/89)
The big advantages are: A) Portable software that is proven to run on several different machines and O.S.s. B) Source code available. C) Extremely generous license to use. D) No payment requested or expected. E) No major political/legal battles. It may very well be that some whiz-bang archiver has a faster implementation and/or compresses more. If someone wants to use that on their machine, more power to them. The use of "zoo" format for distribution makes a lot of sense. Some people like to take a look at distributions on their host. Some people like to use the shared laser printer to print documentation. Having *a* standard format, with the tools readily available to all on (almost) their choice of system can only be a big *win* for everybody concerned. BTW, Where were you when this was discussed to death a couple of months ago? -- Ron Heiby, heiby@chg.mcd.mot.com Moderator: comp.newprod "Life is indeed an inexplicable sequence of imponderable surprises."
dr@myrias.UUCP (Dragos Ruiu) (06/06/89)
People who argue this issue consistently forget two issues that shouldn't be missed. Zoo is the only archiver which can deal with naming oddities like VMS version numbers and files that take advantage of BSD's large name limit. Zoo also deals with directory trees nicely and can take lists of file names to be archived. It might not be a concern to you, but rest assured, some people find these features a must. -- Dragos Ruiu What do you get when you cross a grape with an elephant ? myrias!dr Grape Elephant Sine Theta