moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes) (08/18/90)
tale@turing.cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) writes: > Of course, some things >like trn and nn keep their own databases (boy, do I love all this >space used on my disk) and run their own daemons, so they can keep an >up-to-date cache of this information somewhere. And they usually have a hard time dealing with the holes left with cancels, supersedes, etc... It would be really nice if the trn, nn and nntp people could get together and agree on a standard database that all three could use. Maybe even a single daemon that could be asked the right questions. Mark.
storm@texas.dk (Kim F. Storm) (08/21/90)
tale@turing.cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) writes: > Of course, some things >like trn and nn keep their own databases (boy, do I love all this >space used on my disk) and run their own daemons, so they can keep an >up-to-date cache of this information somewhere. It is simply a trade-off between *your* time and the extra (few %) disk space and cpu-time. moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes) writes: >And they usually have a hard time dealing with the holes left with >cancels, supersedes, etc... I does not have to be a (big) problem if the database is "expired" often enough. At least for a local news source, this is quite efficient with nn release 6.4 (it is *not* efficient with nntp I admit). >It would be really nice if the trn, nn and nntp people could get >together and agree on a standard database that all three could use. >Maybe even a single daemon that could be asked the right questions. Sure, that would be *very* nice. But in that case, I would say that it is really the task of the news transport to maintain the database (i.e. if a unified database for all news readers can be agreed on - and we write an RFC for it - then I see no reason to have separate daemons maintaining it). But then there is the problem whether we can really agree on a common format - I'm not sure since it is very nice to have the freedom to be able to add new information to the database as it becomes necessary to support new features; having an RFC specifying a fixed format would certainly limit future developments of nn unless we can find a sufficiently flexible format allowing news reader specific extensions; but then you still need the news reader specific daemon to maintain it. But I am certainly willing to give it a try! -- Kim F. Storm <storm@texas.dk> No news is good news, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark but nn is better!