Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!amdahl!pacbell!att!mcdchg!ddsw1!karl
From: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: dbz is a must!
Summary: OK, but what about (C) [options that used to work in sys no longer do]
Message-ID: <1989Jul10.145737.4605@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Date: 10 Jul 89 14:57:37 GMT
References: <1989Jul4.183539.19106@ivucsb.sba.ca.us> <9568@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> <1989Jul9.043700.11769@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <1989Jul9.191033.8620@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger)
Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Mundelein, IL
Lines: 34

In article <1989Jul9.191033.8620@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>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).

Hmmm...  Ok.  So why the gratuitous omission?  Believe it or not, that was a
USEFUL header line; you could tell at a glance how long the posting that
follows is.  Now that useful piece of information is gone.

>>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.

We got a bad copy here first time out.  I have already pointed this error on
my part out.

What about my other complaint (C) - constructions of commands in the sys
file which used to work (specifically, parenthesis encasing shell
statements) which now don't do what you would expect.  While this was a
minor hassle for us, it would be a major one for someone with a 2000-line
sys file like uunet!

--
Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910]
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.		"Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"