Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Lines
Message-ID: <1989Sep6.205625.26565@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <5200@looking.on.ca> <1989Aug30.052459.1166@vicom.com> <1989Aug30.204324.2675@paris.ics.uci.edu> <1989Aug30.225332.18770@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> <1989Aug31.174054.15398@paris.ics.uci.edu> <1989Aug31.234545.23296@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 20:56:25 GMT

In article <1989Aug31.234545.23296@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu (John L. Coolidge) writes:
>... I urge Geoff and
>Henry to put a notice in the release notes to C News saying "many people
>think Lines: is a good idea. We don't enable it by default, and here's
>why: <>. But if you think it's a good idea, turn it on by doing: <>."

We'll look at this.

>I'd probably even support a change to the RFC making Lines: an offically
>required header (especially if they'd make References: one too).

Geoff quite dislikes Lines:, especially since most of the people who use
it seem to assume that it's accurate (which it frequently isn't, although
the errors are usually not large).  I personally have no strong feelings
about it.  The code is in there in inews, it's just commented out.  If a
revised spec made it mandatory, we'd uncomment it.  We tend to think that
this is one of the things that news readers can and should determine for
themselves, for robustness if for no other reason, but we wouldn't rise
in revolt if it were made a requirement.  Since it isn't one right now,
it will stay commented in the official distribution.

>But I
>greatly disagree with rewriting articles on the fly, regardless of how
>useful the resulting header is. The ends simply do not justify the means.

This we agree with, emphatically.  We mess with Path and Xref because we
must, and delete a few archaic or vestigial headers, but in general we
have deep religious objections to "improving" articles.  Especially in
ways that make extra work on every site, hurting performance net-wide.
-- 
V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu