Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!vsi1!lmb
From: lmb@vicom.COM (Larry Blair)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Comments on C news
Message-ID: <2228@vicom.COM>
Date: 17 Jun 89 23:52:48 GMT
Organization: VICOM Systems Inc., San Jose, CA
Lines: 46

Now that I've had a chance to play with C news, I have a few comments and one
major gripe.

Good things:

The flexible expire.  The easy aliasing and nonjunking of undesired groups
The passing on of junk.  I particularly like the way sendbatches works,
since it lets me set up a multifeed batch with "uux -l" very easily.

Not so good things:

The fact that default mode is to allow newgroups to be executed.  The config
doesn't even give you a choice and the documentation doesn't state how to
disable it [just change "newgroups" /usr/lib/newsbin/ctl].  The fact that
by default news is always spooled with deferred execution [maybe there's a
good reason for this].  Some of the questions in the config are unanswerable
by even an experienced admin [is your rindex fast?].

Major gripe:

The log file.  The documentation states a goal of not modifying files that
programs will look at.  The log file is examined to create site statistics
that are posted (at least in the Bay Area).  It's not just that the format
was changed; most of the useful information was removed.  Just how did they
decide what to put in the log?  There's no groups listed.  The duplicates
lines don't save the path, making it impossible to tune your feeds.  The
control messages aren't differentiated from regular news postings.  The
log is broken to the point of worthlessness; I'll stick to 2.11.17+ until
I get the time to rewrite the logger.  When I do, I'll post the changes,
since Geoff and Henry have said that they may never release a new version.

Another thing I noticed is that the spooler won't spool the incoming batch
if space is short.  On some systems [ours], /usr/spool/uucp and /usr/spool/
news are on the same filesystem.  This means that spooling the incoming
batch doesn't increase the space used (when the uucp D. file goes away).

Overall, I'd like to use C news.  I had hoped the Eric would get his
stuff together, but the latest round has convinced me that TMN will always
be risky.  Henry and Geoff have taken great pains to try to get it right
the first time.  If they had been a little less closed with their beta
tests, they might have gotten it perfect.

Btw, is my rindex fast?  I've running SunOS 3.5 and will go to 4.0 sometime.
What about the ANSI-compatible questions?
-- 
Larry Blair   ames!vsi1!lmb   lmb@vicom.com