cliff@demon.co.uk (Cliff Stanford) (05/28/91)
In article <1991May25.201843.12565@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: >Thank you for your kind efforts, but please also consider this: > >Nevertheless, I would strongly advise against posting binaries to >unmoderated groups. On top of that I seem to recall that the net >rules don't like it (news.announce.newusers has more information), >let's look at this from a purely practical point of view. The posting in question was a compressed text file. IMHO compressing and uuencoding a lage text file is a far better idea that posting it in its raw text format. How you think it can increase net traffic (one of the points you made) I fail to comprehend. Now ZIP is available on so many platforms, I feel that more large text files sould be zipped before sending out on the net. Regards, Cliff. -- Cliff Stanford Email: cliff@demon.co.uk (Work) Demon Systems Limited cms@demon.co.uk (Home) 42 Hendon Lane Phone: 081-349 0063 (Office) London N3 1TT England 0860 375870 (Mobile)
ronald@robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo) (05/28/91)
cliff@demon.co.uk (Cliff Stanford) writes: > IMHO compressing > and uuencoding a lage text file is a far better idea that posting it in > its raw text format. I beg to differ. > How you think it can increase net traffic (one of > the points you made) I fail to comprehend. Simple. zip->uuencode->compress will often result in a larger file than compressing the text directly. The news software system should be optimised for human use. Unless you build in intelligence about every single compression and encoding scheme into every single newsreader (including cat and grep) you are onto a loser. The approach of putting compression and encoding where it belongs -- in the news transport subsystem simplifies and empowers. It means that you can pick the compression and encoding scheme that suits your particular link. If a particular site particularly wishes to STORE new compressed, then it can make its own decision to modify its news software to do it, but this should not need intervention on a per-poster basis, because that leads to too much confusion. So, if you're posting text, please post text. Do not encode it first. You are breaking more than you are saving. Read, and follow Prof Salmi's instructions. They are there for a purpose. Thank you. -- Ronald Khoo <ronald@robobar.co.uk> +44 81 991 1142 (O) +44 71 229 7741 (H)
randall@Virginia.EDU (Randall Atkinson) (05/28/91)
In article <1991May27.194227.23528@demon.co.uk> cliff@demon.co.uk (Cliff Stanford) writes: >In article <1991May25.201843.12565@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: >>Nevertheless, I would strongly advise against posting binaries to >>unmoderated groups. On top of that I seem to recall that the net >>rules don't like it (news.announce.newusers has more information), >>let's look at this from a purely practical point of view. > > The posting in question was a compressed text file. IMHO compressing >and uuencoding a lage text file is a far better idea that posting it in >its raw text format. How you think it can increase net traffic (one of >the points you made) I fail to comprehend. Now ZIP is available on so >many platforms, I feel that more large text files sould be zipped before >sending out on the net. It is true that compression should be used. It is also true that a file of that size that has been compressed to a binary form and then uuencoded should not according to long-standing USENET practice and the posted guidelines (in news.announce.newusers) be posted except to a moderated "binaries" newsgroup. The reason for this is that many, many of the links forming the net are still over low bandwidth modems and news administrators on the unfortunate side of such links need to be able to restrict the flow of large "binary-type" (including large compressed text file) postings so that they don't lose their entire network feeds. Such news admins aren't technically able to sort manually for such files in their newsfeed but can easily sort by newsgroup using existing mechanisms. Such "binary" newsgroups are often simply not carried across the low bandwidth links and if a pattern of binary postings to a discussion group appears, many sites will stop carrying the nominally discussion-only newsgroup and many innocent folks will lose part of their net access. It is important for all of us to try to be considerate of others in this regard. The comp.binaries .ibm.pc newsgroup has in the past carried text-only compressed files and is probably where that posting should have been made (if at all). Ideally I think that such files would be made available via "anonymous ftp" or "anonymous UUCP" or such like instead, but if posted they should only go to a moderated binaries newsgroup. By the way, nowhere does it say that a "binary" is by definition executable or object code, it just means any encoding that isn't a pure text encoding (along the lines of US ASCII or maybe ISO 646). Please re-read the periodic postings in news.announce.newusers in this regard.
Cliff.Stanford@sunbrk.FidoNet.Org (Cliff Stanford) (05/28/91)
In article <1991May25.201843.12565@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: >Thank you for your kind efforts, but please also consider this: > >Nevertheless, I would strongly advise against posting binaries to >unmoderated groups. On top of that I seem to recall that the net >rules don't like it (news.announce.newusers has more information), >let's look at this from a purely practical point of view. The posting in question was a compressed text file. IMHO compressing and uuencoding a lage text file is a far better idea that posting it in its raw text format. How you think it can increase net traffic (one of the points you made) I fail to comprehend. Now ZIP is available on so many platforms, I feel that more large text files sould be zipped before sending out on the net. Regards, Cliff. -- Cliff Stanford Email: cliff@demon.co.uk (Work) Demon Systems Limited cms@demon.co.uk (Home) 42 Hendon Lane Phone: 081-349 0063 (Office) London N3 1TT England 0860 375870 (Mobile) * Origin: Seaeast - Fidonet<->Usenet Gateway - sunbrk (1:343/15.0)
Ronald.S.H.Khoo@sunbrk.FidoNet.Org (Ronald S H Khoo) (05/28/91)
cliff@demon.co.uk (Cliff Stanford) writes: > IMHO compressing > and uuencoding a lage text file is a far better idea that posting it in > its raw text format. I beg to differ. > How you think it can increase net traffic (one of > the points you made) I fail to comprehend. Simple. zip->uuencode->compress will often result in a larger file than compressing the text directly. The news software system should be optimised for human use. Unless you build in intelligence about every single compression and encoding scheme into every single newsreader (including cat and grep) you are onto a loser. The approach of putting compression and encoding where it belongs -- in the news transport subsystem simplifies and empowers. It means that you can pick the compression and encoding scheme that suits your particular link. If a particular site particularly wishes to STORE new compressed, then it can make its own decision to modify its news software to do it, but this should not need intervention on a per-poster basis, because that leads to too much confusion. So, if you're posting text, please post text. Do not encode it first. You are breaking more than you are saving. Read, and follow Prof Salmi's instructions. They are there for a purpose. Thank you. -- Ronald Khoo <ronald@robobar.co.uk> +44 81 991 1142 (O) +44 71 229 7741 (H) * Origin: Seaeast - Fidonet<->Usenet Gateway - sunbrk (1:343/15.0)
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (05/28/91)
In article <1991May27.194227.23528@demon.co.uk> cliff@demon.co.uk (Cliff Stanford) writes: >In article <1991May25.201843.12565@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: >>Thank you for your kind efforts, but please also consider this: : : > The posting in question was a compressed text file. IMHO compressing >and uuencoding a lage text file is a far better idea that posting it in >its raw text format. How you think it can increase net traffic (one of >the points you made) I fail to comprehend. Now ZIP is available on so >many platforms, I feel that more large text files sould be zipped before >sending out on the net. Although the one uuencoded zip-posting is no problem per se, I think you are quite missing the essence of the matter. Kindly reread my original arguments, and consider what will happen if the practice of posting large bunches of uudecoded zipped material (binary or text, no matter) that really belongs to FTP sites (and BBSes) catches on. Anarchy can be only one step away. This is also of no real consequence, but a couple of kind users have been quick to point out that this uuencoded zip was a text file (My note: when uudecoded, possibly transferred to a PC, and unzippped, that is after having been treated like a true binary posting). Again, if you look at my original posting carefully, you'll see that in fact I made no contrary claims of the kernel the posting, and one individual posting is beside the point anyway. Would you please try to see the the wood for the trees. All the best, Timo ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37 School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
dougs@tvnews.tv.tek.com (Doug Stevens) (05/28/91)
Good grief, I wish a Unix guru somewhere would fix the binary posting process. The system would work much better if you could write a header explaining what you are posting, then 'enclose' the binary as you would on Novell networks, and let the system figure out how to compress it, uuencode it, and send it. At the other end, when you want to 'extract' the binary, the system should be able to uudecode it and decompress it. Can you imagine how much programmer time and money a feature like that could save? Having a background in both Unix and PC's, it always amazes me that Unix systems are so much more primitive than PC's when it comes to posting/sending mail.
rfarris@rfengr.com (Rick Farris) (05/29/91)
In article <1991May28.165033.3092@tvnews.tv.tek.com> dougs@tvnews.tv.tek.com (Doug Stevens) writes: > Having a background in both Unix and PC's, it always > amazes me that Unix systems are so much more primitive > than PC's when it comes to posting/sending mail. That's not true. Both Z-mail and Poste allow transparent binary attachments. Poste even allows you to view attached faxes in a separate window. Before you complain that neither Z-mail nor Poste come stock with Unix, let me point out that *no* mailers come stock with MS-DOS. -- Rick Farris RF Engineering POB M Del Mar, CA 92014 voice (619) 259-6793 rfarris@rfengr.com ...!ucsd!serene!rfarris serenity bbs 259-7757
melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) (05/29/91)
In article <1991May28.165033.3092@tvnews.tv.tek.com> dougs@tvnews.tv.tek.com (Doug Stevens) writes:
Having a background in both Unix and PC's, it always amazes me that Unix
systems are so much more primitive than PC's when it comes to posting/sending
mail.
Well, in case you haven't heard the NeXT allows you to send binary
files(as in executables, TIFFS, voice). This capability has been
there since 1988(OS/2 was just a bunch of promises -- actually it
still is). It might have been refined since 1988. I've only been
using the NeXT for about a year now, and I must say it does make
personal computers look like toys.
-Mike
BTW, all you have to know is how to click and drag. Quit playing with
toys! Are we all excited about DOS 5.0? :-)csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) (05/30/91)
>>The posting in question was a compressed text file. IMHO compressing and >>uuencoding a lage text file is a far better idea that posting it in its >>raw text format. You are wrong. Any news link where compression is helpful is already using compression in the news software. Compressing an article that is was already compressed by the originator makes it larger. Anything posted to the net should be in "raw" uncompressed format. Always. That includes binaries. <csg>
enag@ifi.uio.no (Erik Naggum) (05/30/91)
Doug Stevens writes: | | Good grief, I wish a Unix guru somewhere would fix the binary | posting process. The system would work much better if you could | write a header explaining what you are posting, then 'enclose' the | binary as you would on Novell networks, and let the system figure | out how to compress it, uuencode it, and send it. At the other | end, when you want to 'extract' the binary, the system should be | able to uudecode it and decompress it. The problems with this is that _every_ news transport agent in the world must know how to deal with each and every weird format that people might like to move around in news, and _every_ news user agent will have to know how to handle the same weird formats. OK, so your counter-argument is that we could "just" use compress and uuencode and _nothing_ else. For how long do you think this would work out? How long until some PC-based humanoid comes along and thinks "Gee, why can't they use ZIP like everybody else does?" You take it from there. Or rather, the X.400 I-want-an-object-identifier-for-my-fancy-format crowd take you there. Wish them luck, and don't damn them when things don't _interwork_, 'cause you agree with them in principle. | Can you imagine how much programmer time and money a feature like | that could save? "Save programmer time"? Yeah, right. How much have you paid for your USENET news transfer and user agents? Did you say "save money"? | Having a background in both Unix and PC's, it always amazes me | that Unix systems are so much more primitive than PC's when it | comes to posting/sending mail. Well, you're confused. PC's are much better at showing you neat user interfaces. I readily grant you that. Colors, fancy graphics, music and all sorts of fancy things. However, give me one such system on which you can move data around _everywhere_, regardless of format, system, carrier, character set, etc. What, you ask, don't they all have IBM compatible PC's? Why should people care about any other machine type than mine? Unix is good for program input, i.e. input which can come from anywhere, and be sent anywhere. DOS is good for user input, i.e. input which comes only from the user, and will generally only be sent to the user. Now, Unix systems need a little bit of user input systems, as well, which "we" haven't been good at designing. In the meantime, we make do with functionality, good software design, and portability across platforms. DOS lacks all the sound functionality, but has all the nifty display features that, when push comes to shove, don't count. You're welcome to designing a data description language which can be used to describe any given format in such a way that useful infor- mation may get out of it at any site. My guess is that when you've tried this for a while, you come to realize that ordinary, readable text with some structure and syntax is what you want. Binary data formats is not a good idea, because what it might appear to save in some ways, it wastes ten-fold in others. </Erik> -- Erik Naggum Professional Programmer +47-2-836-863 Naggum Software Electronic Text <ERIK@NAGGUM.NO> 0118 OSLO, NORWAY Computer Communications <enag@ifi.uio.no>