Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: dbz is a must!
Message-ID: <1989Jul9.191033.8620@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Jul4.183539.19106@ivucsb.sba.ca.us> <9568@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> <1989Jul9.043700.11769@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 89 19:10:33 GMT

In article <1989Jul9.043700.11769@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes:
>1) "C" news articles don't have a "Lines: xxx" header.  This stinks, and
>   broke one of our local interface programs...

I regret to point out that your program was already broken:  "Lines:" has
always been optional according to the specs (RFC1036 is the current spec).

>2) "C" news has little or no documentation.  For example, "expire" flags had
>   to be discerned by reading the code...

Uh, last time I looked, expire's flags were fully documented in man/expire.8.
Did you not get that file for some reason?  The documentation is admittedly
a bit sketchy for total novices, but for experienced news administrators
the contents of the "doc", "man", and "notebook" directories should be
reasonably sufficient.
-- 
$10 million equals 18 PM       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
(Pentagon-Minutes). -Tom Neff  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu