Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!apple!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!mcb
From: mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Review of NN, a Usenet news reader
Summary: The .newsrc format and article numbers
Message-ID: <327@ncis.tis.llnl.gov>
Date: 27 Jul 89 23:55:09 GMT
References: <2794@mace.cc.purdue.edu> <404@laas.laas.fr> <2803@mace.cc.purdue.edu>
Organization: Postmodern Consulting, Pleasanton CA USA
Lines: 25

In article <2803@mace.cc.purdue.edu> asd@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth) writes:
> >possibly a *standard* .newsrc file.  When, for example, you're on a
> >network with a plethora of newsreaders which are not uniformly
> >distributed over all machines, but *all* can read your .newsrc file.
> 
> But only one .newsrc can only apply to one machine right?  The numbers in it
> aren't transferable around machines are they?  (Neither are nn's ither) Why
> would you need to read news on all the different machines?  I've got a dozen
> plus accounts on different machines, and only read from one.  [...]

Not true on networks with NNTP servers and clients.  The article
numbers are consistent across all clients using the same NNTP server,
and on the server itself if it permits local news reading.  The same
is true if news reader client systems mount SPOOLNEWS using NFS or
other distributed file system schemes; the article numbers will be
shared there as well.

In distributed environments people often read news on more than one
machine, depending on where they are sitting or what they might be
working on, and most, I'm sure, would like continuity across systems
of the read/unread status of articles in groups they read.

--
Michael C. Berch  
mcb@tis.llnl.gov / uunet!tis.llnl.gov!mcb