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From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Why "shar: Shell Archive  (v1.22)" is bad
Summary: the "Not invented here" symdrome strike again!
Message-ID: <444@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 21 Sep 89 15:43:46 GMT
References: <1979@prune.bbn.com>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center
Lines: 38

In article <1979@prune.bbn.com>, rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) writes:
|  I'm finishing up the "final" release of my cshar tools.  This is what
|  I generally use to pack things up for posting to comp.sources.unix.
|  Working on that, plus the metrics posting that just went out, has led
|  me to make the following request:
|      If at all possible, please don't submit sources to comp.sources.unix
|      that are generated with the above tool (I don't know it's common name,
|      it's not the RogueMonster one, it's not my cshar) -- the one that
|      uses s2_seq.tmp files to unpack things in sequence.

  It's my "shar2" tool.
|      
|  There are two reasons for this:
|  	1.  It generates complex /bin/sh constructs:
		[ example deleted ]
|  	    my shell parser can't parse this, and I doubt any non-sh
|  	    parser can.
  It was intended to work with the UNIX /bin/sh program, not a subset
which some people don't have. It works with versions back to at least V7.
|  
|  	2.  If a piece is missing, the whole archive is useless until
|  	    it shows up.  This is often a waste of time; you might as
|  	    well let folks start examining the other files.
  After unpacking many things which had "all arrived but one" I think
that "waste of time" may be a matter of opinion. It's a consequence of
splitting files to make equal size archives rather than doing an
aproximation with whole size.

  If you want to force people to use your versions of all the software
involved why not say so. I have recieved only thanks and a few helpful
suggestions for improvements. I assume that if other people were
bothered by this they would say so (they certainly talk about my other
software).
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon