rayan@ai.toronto.edu (Rayan Zachariassen) (04/10/89)
I edited the submissions for the following hosts: acis cgate dvinci gandalf idcmp julie qcc-hal van-bc aimed cognos dybbuk gompa isdserv nrcaer regina zephyr attcan darkover fammed hybrid ists phenix utas If you are on this list please retrieve your map from the posting in comp.mail.maps and use it as the baseline for future submissions. The editing is typically a minor cosmetic change to keep the map in line with the standard (remember that the #X lines may be parsed by programs). Once again, do NOT send submissions to my personal account, use utai!path for normal updates and rutgers!uucpmap for new hosts. Btw, the deadline at Rutgers is the 8th of each month, so if you get in the habit of sending updates at the beginning of a month it is usually well-timed for the next posting. Would you be interested in a scheme that allows you to update your map entry via a server of some kind? If so, how? My major concern with that is that I've got no syntax-checking program to check entries automatically. Are people disciplined enough that it isn't necessary? rayan
lyndon@aurthanc.AthabascaU.CA (Lyndon Nerenberg) (04/12/89)
I like the idea of the server, however I think some form of syntax checking is mandatory, otherwise you're just going to create more work for yourself. It shouldn't be too difficult to build a grammer specifying the format of the map entries. If the map "checker" doesn't like what it sees it can just bounce the message back to the originator (hopefully with a reasonable diagnostic). One thing that does concern me about this method is it seems to make life simpler for someone to forge a map entry for a site. One advantage of having a human in the chain is s/he can spot questionable submissions and verify them with the site admins. The software could be built to only accept updates from mail addresses in the existing map's #E entry. Unfortunately, this doesn't always reflect reality. Witness the map entries for ncc and apss. Although I'm no longer listed as the contact person for either of these sites, I still handle submitting the map updates. All in all, I think it's a good idea and should be pursued further.
eric@becker.UUCP (Eric Siegerman) (04/18/89)
In article <89Apr10.101145edt.38137@neat.ai.toronto.edu> rayan@ai.toronto.edu (Rayan Zachariassen) writes: >I edited the submissions for the following hosts: >[list of hosts, plus other stuff, deleted] > >Would you be interested in a scheme that allows you to update your >map entry via a server of some kind? If so, how? It makes no difference to me whether Rayan or a program collates kneller's map entry into the lists. Seems to me that Rayan's time/energy is the issue... >My major concern with >that is that I've got no syntax-checking program to check entries >automatically. Are people disciplined enough that it isn't necessary? All but the ones you named :-). Seriously, there will always be errors in submitted map entries. I suspect it's not as much a matter of discipline as of the simple fact that people make mistakes. Writing a map entry is as error-prone as writing a program -- less intrinsically difficult, but most of us spend a lot more of our time writing code than we do writing map entries, which goes a long way toward cancelling out the fact that it's an intrinsically easier task. (With the proliferation of personal Usenet nodes, an increasing number of submitted map entries will be their authors' first attempt!) I'm not crying doom here, or arguing that Rayan (or anyone) *should* continue to manually process map entries. None of this argues against a syntax-checking program. My point is simply that utai!path will always receive a few erroneous submissions, and that any scheme which assumes the contrary is sure to encounter occasional problems. -- Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont. eks@kneller.UUCP, eric@becker.UUCP, ...!utzoo!mnetor!becker!kneller!eks