jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) (09/14/90)
In article <542@cpsolv.CPS.COM> rhg@cpsolv.CPS.COM (Richard H. Gumpertz) writes: >Submitted-by: rhg@cpsolv >Archive-name: shar3.49/part02 I hate to pick on Warren Tucker, but isn't this getting a bit silly? How many new versions of shar a week are you guys turning out? -- John F. Haugh II UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh Ma Bell: (512) 832-8832 Domain: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org "SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!" -- Ken Thompson
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (09/15/90)
jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: > rhg@cpsolv.CPS.COM (Richard H. Gumpertz) writes: >>Submitted-by: rhg@cpsolv >>Archive-name: shar3.49/part02 > >I hate to pick on Warren Tucker, but isn't this getting a bit silly? >How many new versions of shar a week are you guys turning out? There is sufficient precedent, John. Or have you forgotten the initial release of Perl, followed instantly by 26-some patches? It was along about patch 20 that I realized I would never, for love or money, write a line of Perl code, I was that angry at Larry's release methods. Comparitively, shar 3.49 is a mild irritation. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
rhg@cpsolv.CPS.COM (Richard H. Gumpertz) (09/16/90)
In article <3911@ecs.soton.ac.uk> tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Tim Chown) writes: >In <541@cpsolv.CPS.COM> rhg@cpsolv.CPS.COM (Richard H. Gumpertz) writes: > >>Submitted-by: rhg@cpsolv >>Archive-name: shar3.49/part01 > >>Patch 3 to shar 3.43 was relative to the wrong version of Makefile. Rather >>than try to patch a patch and all that, here is the whole thing. > >Is a static version of shar near? I'm greatful for any bug-fixes >and enhancements, but patches seem to be rather prolific at present!! I try to release patches for BUGS on a fast turnaround basis. Otherwise, MANY people may trip over a problem with an already known fix. Enhancements go out only after a "while" (or piggybacked with the next urgent bug fix if that happens to come first). The beta testers let me down and did not sufficiently test the preleases of shar 3.43. Most notable was the dirent stuff; it wouldn't compile on BSD-like systems and so the need to make some quick fixes in that area. I then accidentally blew patch 3 by comparing against the wrong previous version of Makefile and so, as I said (and is quoted above), I decided the cleanest recovery would be a complete rerelease. Any further discussion of the subject will just waste more bandwidth than the original postings. You have my apologies. There have been no bug reports since 3.49 except for "isgraph(x)" not being available on vanilla BSD. The fix for this seems so trivial and obvious (using isprint(x) & !isspace(x)) that I have decided to let release of my "official" patch wait as non-urgent. Actually, there is one other open issue: does SCO XENIX/UNIX 386 want "-DNO_DIRENT -DCLOSEDIR_VOID" to be included in CFLAGS (in Makefile) or not? That is, does it have a BSD-like <sys/dir.h> or does it want <dirent.h>? I have had both ways asserted to me as "correct". Darned if I know (or even really care at this point) which is correct. Edit whatever you want into Makefile. If you have a DEFINITIVE answer, let me know what it is. -- ========================================================================== | Richard H. Gumpertz rhg@CPS.COM (913) 642-1777 or (816) 891-3561 | | Computer Problem Solving, 8905 Mohawk Lane, Leawood, Kansas 66206-1749 | ==========================================================================
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (09/16/90)
In article <1990Sep15.104022.22648@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: >> rhg@cpsolv.CPS.COM (Richard H. Gumpertz) writes: >>>Submitted-by: rhg@cpsolv >>>Archive-name: shar3.49/part02 >> >>I hate to pick on Warren Tucker, but isn't this getting a bit silly? >>How many new versions of shar a week are you guys turning out? > >There is sufficient precedent, John. Or have you forgotten the initial >release of Perl, followed instantly by 26-some patches? > >It was along about patch 20 that I realized I would never, for love or >money, write a line of Perl code, I was that angry at Larry's release >methods. Utter bullshit, he said dispassionately. :-) Perl represented MAJOR new functionality in an unheard-of package, with maximum portability the goal and wide-open testing the modus operandi. Larry released what he had and invited input. The result was a series of working patchlevels. The patchlevel number (currently 28) is artificially high because a number of major updates required patch scripts bigger than a normal news article, so they were split into constituent "patch sets." The number of integral Perl changes is a lot less than 28. The result is GOLDEN, and Kent is living in an obsolete universe if he's too stubborn to import it. >Comparitively, shar 3.49 is a mild irritation. ComparAtively, "shar 3.49" is a complete fucking waste of time and net.resource from people with nothing better to do than reinvent the wheel so they can etch their names on the hubcap. In my not so humble opinion. ;-) -- "Well! Is somebody a teensy bit low on self-esteem ===== Tom Neff today?" -- Irwin [|||] tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM "Shuddup. Go away. Scram. Get lost." -- Broom Hilda [|||] uunet!bfmny0!tneff
jmm@eci386.uucp (John Macdonald) (09/19/90)
In article <15859@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes: |In article <1990Sep15.104022.22648@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: |> |> [...] Or have you forgotten the initial |>release of Perl, followed instantly by 26-some patches? |> |>It was along about patch 20 that I realized I would never, for love or |>money, write a line of Perl code, I was that angry at Larry's release |>methods. | |Utter bullshit, he said dispassionately. :-) While I generally agree with the objections that state that the situations for perl and shar are not comparable, I think that Tom (and previously, perhaps to a lesser extent, Randall) have slightly overstated the objection to the factual portion of Kent's posting. When Perl 2.0 came out, it *did* include a large number of patches. The release of Perl 3.0 was much neater. (Otherwise, I agree with Tom and Randall that Kent's rejection of Perl is foolish, and that the situation does *not* compare with the current shar if you compare using some sort of metric like patches per feature. Even the release combining with a large number of patches is understandable. Even way back then, there was a fairly large well-connected Internet community and variable delays between sending an item to comp.sources.unix and it being actually posted. Perl's attempt to rationalize into a single interface many features common to many systems (but implented in many different ways) lead to a number of patches. So did people asking for other large capabilities that were often available in similar, but different, ways on many systems. Many of those patches were due to its phenominal success *before* it had even been posted to c.s.u! It is not suprizing that the release of Perl 3.0 was tidier. Most of the obvious new features has already been added, so new-feature patches are much less frequent. So much work has already been done on wide portability issues that new individual features are more easily added in a portable manner. A large enough group of Perl users existed to allow a much wider group of Beta testers.) -- Algol 60 was an improvment on most | John Macdonald of its successors - C.A.R. Hoare | jmm@eci386
QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK (09/19/90)
At the risk of some flames, how about putting a feature in your shar which I couldn't find (well not with 3.43....)? The version shipped by my vendor will add the uudecode source for sending to sites where they don't have it. Alan Thew University of Liverpool Computer Laboratory Bitnet/Earn: QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK or QQ11%UK.AC.LIVERPOOL @ UKACRL UUCP : ....!mcsun!ukc!liv!qq11 Voice: +44 51 794 3735 Internet : QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK or QQ11%LIVERPOOL.AC.UK @ NSFNET-RELAY.AC.UK
rhg@cpsolv.CPS.COM (Richard H. Gumpertz) (09/20/90)
In article <90261.205650QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK> QQ11@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK writes: >At the risk of some flames, how about putting a feature in your shar which >I couldn't find (well not with 3.43....)? The version shipped by my >vendor will add the uudecode source for sending to sites where they don't >have it. Talk about creeping featurism! No, I won't add this. Just refrain from sending uuencoded shar files to people who don't have uudecode. Actually, ALL versions of shar support this already: just specify your favorite version of uudecode.c as the first argument to shar! Maybe I am missing something. Do you want uudecode to be automatically compiled and installed such too? In that case, we better send a C compiler, assembler, and linker in the shar file too (in case the recipient is missing one of those)! Hey, that's the ticket: shar could do the whole bootstrap process for porting Unix: just send the Unix source to a new machine and it will automatically do everything needed to port Unix to that machine! Moby Sigh. -- ========================================================================== | Richard H. Gumpertz rhg@CPS.COM (913) 642-1777 or (816) 891-3561 | | Computer Problem Solving, 8905 Mohawk Lane, Leawood, Kansas 66206-1749 | ==========================================================================