kjones@talos.pm.com (Kyle Jones) (08/21/90)
Larry A. Shurr writes: > It greatly reduces the amount of work for those who administer > archives of posted materials. It's not much to ask in order > to assist those who provide this service. The poster of a useful program might well think it's not much to ask that recipients look at the article and decide where to file it. Some people don't care if their program is archived or not. Also, how are users supposed to know what's a good name to put in the Archive-name header? What happens if there's a naming collision with something already in someone's archive? If the archiver is going to provide a decent index, they'll have to look at the articles anyway, in order to prepare it. (The output of "ls -lR" in the top-level of the archive is not a decent index.) BTW, I'm all for helping the archivers, but I'd like to see the benefits of Archive-name explained in a bit more detail.
wht@n4hgf.Mt-Park.GA.US (Warren Tucker) (08/22/90)
Arkive-Nombre: diatribe-blabber/part01 In article <9008211455.AA02499@talos.pm.com> kjones@talos.pm.com (Kyle Jones) writes: >Also, how are users supposed to know what's a good name to put in >the Archive-name header? I could rephrase your question as: How are users supposed to know what's a good name for the program they are posting? >If the >archiver is going to provide a decent index, they'll have to look >at the articles anyway, in order to prepare it. Take a look at any "real" group's v##INDEX postings. The A-N header --FACILITATES-- the good indexing you want!! >BTW, I'm all for helping the archivers, but I'd like to see the >benefits of Archive-name explained in a bit more detail. I thought all this was *obvious*. I must be missing something. Before blowing off such a smaaall request from the experienced who keep the infrastructure of the net going for us ignorant parasites, try to gain some experience yourself by studying the structure in the comp.sources.unix, comp.sources.misc, comp.archives, and comp.binaries.ibm.pc groups. It is Very Handy when you are looking for a program named 'foo,' say, and you do not know that it was posted in Volume 4, Issues 12-14, patched months later in Volume 6, Issue 5 and patched again months later in Volume 7, Issue 10. Instead, you just need look up 'foo' to find: foo/part01 foo/part02 foo/part03 foo/patch01 foo/patch02 Without Archive-name, you may never find all the patches or even know of their existence. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Warren Tucker, March Hare gatech!n4hgf!wht or wht@n4hgf.Mt-Park.GA.US "Tell the moon; don't tell the March Hare: He is here. Do look around."
emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (08/22/90)
In article <193@n4hgf.Mt-Park.GA.US> wht@n4hgf.Mt-Park.GA.US (Warren Tucker) writes: Arkive-Nombre: diatribe-blabber/part01 >Also, how are users supposed to know what's a good name to put in >the Archive-name header? It is Very Handy when you are looking for a program named 'foo,' say, and you do not know that it was posted in Volume 4, Issues 12-14, patched months later in Volume 6, Issue 5 and patched again months later in Volume 7, Issue 10. Instead, you just need look up 'foo' to find: foo/part01 foo/part02 foo/part03 foo/patch01 foo/patch02 Well...there's a problem here, one which I understand librarians refer to as "authority control". Say you are looking for a program named "shar", which I understand is a very popular name for people to give to their programs. You think that your program is the One True Shar, but other people differ. The alt.sources archivist(s) have to make that decision, one way or another. One reasonable solution that has been used in the Gnu Emacs Lisp library collection is to prefix the name of the package with the author's name, so it would be wht-foo/part01 wht-foo/part02 wht-foo/part03 ... to disambiguate between authors. If a separate posting comes around with header information, it might even be sensible to override the author's ill-advised Archive-name choice with a better one. Even worse, you might forget or not have easy access to all of the various Archive-name headers that people have used throughout the course of the group, and thus give yourself the opportunity for accidental collisions. Another substantial problem with alt.sources is version control. The system is explicitly designed (hm, seems to have worked out to be) to let people post multiple revisions of a package in quick succession. Not all authors are equally conscientious about keeping version information around. My hack for this for comp.archives is to use the date as the version string, so for one-part stuff it might look like wht-foo/21-Aug-90 which is OK unless you get two in the same day or a multipart posting in. Alt.sources gets a fair amount of stuff, and it's pretty diverse; comp.archives even more so. As a result a naive application of Archive-name: as a file name to store the article in is going to break down as soon as your directory starts to fill up with 100's of entries, or 1000s even. So you need to split the archive into volumes, either one a year, quarter, or month depending on traffic So these files would be kept in e.g. /usenet/alt.sources/vol.90.3Q/wht-foo/21-Aug-90.Z which still lets you grep on foo or do ls /usenet/alt.sources/*/*foo* to find things. I don't know that Archive-Name is the be all and end all of things. Certainly if you could extract the README and other internal documentation and make it accessable for a full-text search, you'd enable even more arbitrary and complex searches. Similarly, if the author information were easily visible, you could search for things like "all programs written by wht"; that's not easy to do in any of the indexes of usenet archives that I'm aware of. Archive-name does have the very nice property of being a sensible way to store postings, one file per article, with reasonable grouping and meaningful file names. And popular archiving software understands it. Fertile field for research and standardization, perhaps. I understand that the ANSI committee Z39.67 on "computer software description" has a draft available, $25 to NISO, PO Box 1056, Bethesda MD, but that this document concerns itself mostly with descriptions and cataloging of shrink-wrapped commercial software and not the less orderly stuff that flows through usenet. (Haven't read it myself.) --Ed Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept <emv@math.lsa.umich.edu> moderator, comp.archives
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (08/22/90)
I'm afraid that trying to enforce a header field like Archive-Name: in an unmoderated source group like alt.sources goes against the grain of the group. You are always going to have people who don't supply it; we are always going to have these arguments. And yes, those who do supply it will sometimes do it wrong, or redundantly, or ambiguously. The virtue of alt.sources is its spontaneity and timeliness. Those things are more important than header consistency. One solution that suggests itself is fixing things in alt.sources.index. Kyle is already performing a great service by tagging along after the great unruly caravan of alt.sources and putting things in place. (Remember the guy with the broom in the credits of Jay Ward's Mr Peabody and Sherman cartoon?) Perhaps he could filter for the approved header and, failing to find one, assign one. I know it's extra work but it might be worth it, even if there is some additional delay in the index. -- "We plan absentee ownership. I'll stick to `o' Tom Neff building ships." -- George Steinbrenner, 1973 o"o tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (08/23/90)
In article <15776@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes: > I'm afraid that trying to enforce a header field like Archive-Name: in > an unmoderated source group like alt.sources goes against the grain of > the group. You are always going to have people who don't supply it; we > are always going to have these arguments. And yes, those who do supply > it will sometimes do it wrong, or redundantly, or ambiguously. This is also true of trying to enforce *sources* in alt.sources, or for that matter trying to enforce *anything* on Usenet. All I want is for a reasonable percentage of folks to know about and use it... -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (08/24/90)
In article <18508@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: > What is wrong with Peter's insistence that everyone add an > Archive-Name: header is the incorrect assumption that everyone > wants to have that particular version of that particular > program archived. *If* people regularly used Archive-headers for stuff they did want archived, it would be reasonable to leave programs that didn't have it unarchived. But the way it is we have to save *everything* and look at it individually, since we never know what is real and what isn't. So I'm on your side after all. Amazing, eh? -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com
emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (08/26/90)
In article <9ZE5:-G@ggpc2.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
*If* people regularly used Archive-headers for stuff they did want archived,
it would be reasonable to leave programs that didn't have it unarchived. But
the way it is we have to save *everything* and look at it individually, since
we never know what is real and what isn't.
Peter, you could look at everything as it comes in, and make the
decision to archive or not archive on the fly. For just alt.sources,
that shouldn't be too much of a burden; and if you come up with good
Archive-name headers for the ones that dont' have them, come up with a
format for them that's sensible and post it to alt.sources.index.
You don't have to make a very difficult decision, just "do I want to
be able to find this 3 months later". Most discussion is an easy no.
Most things with Archive-name headers are easy yes.
Tracking alt.sources is not going to be easy, it'll take some work.
Some people are doing some of it for you now; your mission, should
you choose to accept it, is to finish the process of adding on
headers where you see fit. Apparently no one is going to do it
for you, it's up to you.
--Ed
Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept <emv@math.lsa.umich.edu>
moderator, comp.archives (who does his share of looking at everything)peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (08/26/90)
In article <EMV.90Aug25181035@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu> emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes: > Peter, you could look at everything as it comes in, and make the > decision to archive or not archive on the fly. ... and duplicate the effort for all archive sites. And that still doesn't get all the sites synchronised. By the time the index comes around all the articles have already been archived. A lot of work to do something the program's authors know better how to do. > Apparently no one is going to do it for you, it's up to you. Ah, but you're wrong. People *are* doing it. More all the time. I've got mail from several people saying they're going to start doing it from now on and asking for suggestions. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com
jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) (08/27/90)
In article <9ZE5:-G@ggpc2.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >*If* people regularly used Archive-headers for stuff they did want archived, >it would be reasonable to leave programs that didn't have it unarchived. But >the way it is we have to save *everything* and look at it individually, since >we never know what is real and what isn't. Perhaps people already are using the Archive-Name: header the way they are intended to be used. Perhaps the postings with no Archive-Name: aren't intended to be archived, either because the poster doesn't want you to waste your time because she knows she is going to post the enhanced version in two more days, or more possibly because it is just a beta-test version that will be sent off to Brandon in a few weeks. >So I'm on your side after all. Amazing, eh? Well, my side is for natural selection - let those who are smart enough to figure at the benefits of using/not using the Archive-Name: header figure it out. Before I agree that the Archive-Name: header is a universally Swell Idea, I want to know what advantages not having that header could possibly have. Preventing a proliferation of incremental improvements in the archives is one advantage that comes to mind. -- 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
peter@sugar.UUCP (08/27/90)
In article <9008211455.AA02499@talos.pm.com> kjones@talos.pm.com (Kyle Jones) writes: > BTW, I'm all for helping the archivers, but I'd like to see the > benefits of Archive-name explained in a bit more detail. How about "Hey, where did you say that program was?" "Look at frotzcom1.3 in your local alt.sources archive." You don't *need* file names, ever. Forth proves that. But they can be real convenient. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.
jfh@rpp386.UUCP (08/27/90)
In article <9008211455.AA02499@talos.pm.com> kjones@talos.pm.com (Kyle Jones) writes: >The poster of a useful program might well think it's not much to >ask that recipients look at the article and decide where to file >it. Some people don't care if their program is archived or not. The point about an Archive-Name: header is not to make it easier for users, but rather to make it easier for archivers. What is wrong with Peter's insistence that everyone add an Archive-Name: header is the incorrect assumption that everyone wants to have that particular version of that particular program archived. I, for one, frequently use alt.sources to release test versions of code that I most certainly don't want archived. Posters should be permitted to decide if they want their postings archived. -- 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
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (08/27/90)
In article <18512@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: > Perhaps people already are using the Archive-Name: header the way they > are intended to be used. Perhaps the postings with no Archive-Name: aren't > intended to be archived, I think it's clear, from messages of the form "I never heard of this Archive Name header", that this isn't the case. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com
jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) (08/29/90)
In article <GPH5TP8@ggpc2.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <18512@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: >> Perhaps people already are using the Archive-Name: header the way they >> are intended to be used. Perhaps the postings with no Archive-Name: aren't >> intended to be archived, > >I think it's clear, from messages of the form "I never heard of this Archive >Name header", that this isn't the case. Which is exactly my point - do you really want to archive things from people who aren't paying attention? Why would you pay attention to someone who isn't paying any attention to you? Remember - this is evolution in action. -- 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
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (08/30/90)
In article <18514@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: > Which is exactly my point - do you really want to archive things from > people who aren't paying attention? Sure, if it's useful. Why on earth would I not? > Why would you pay attention to > someone who isn't paying any attention to you? I'm sorry, but even my ego isn't that big. :-> -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.
crissl@rulcvx.LeidenUniv.nl (Stefan Linnemann) (08/30/90)
In lots of articles lots of people write lots of things about archive-headers: So lost of people know you can't ENFORCE things in the alt.groups. So what's wrong with suggesting the use of archive headers for those who would love to use them, if only they knew how. So what's wrong with letting the people who don't want to use the archive header, because it's only an alfa- or beta-release, soon to be followed by an official release. Peter da Silva suggested at one time to make a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for this group. To me that seems like an excellent idea: I'm relatively new to the net and more often than not I'm completely baffled by things the net.gurus expect me (not specifically me, but a new user like me) to know. And I'm not even talking flames (boy, are some of those net.readers hot headed!!!). So I'm for a FAQ-posting, in which the OPTIONAL use of an archive header can be explained and recommended. Who can object to that! (Well, I'll know that in a minute or so :-), just give me time to put on that good ol' asbestos suit.) With kind regards to those, who will make intelligent answers, Stefan.
6sigma2@polari.UUCP (Brian Matthews) (09/01/90)
In article <18514@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: |do you really want to archive things from |people who aren't paying attention? So knowing an informal, unwritten custom of alt.sources is now a requirement for writing good, usable code? Feh. -- Brian L. Matthews blm@6sceng.UUCP