Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Why aren't new articles compressed?
Message-ID: <1989Oct30.020352.6330@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <431@cpsolv.UUCP> <1989Oct27.161920.5169@utzoo.uucp> <432@cpsolv.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 89 02:03:52 GMT

In article <432@cpsolv.UUCP> rhg@cpsolv.uucp (Richard H. Gumpertz) writes:
>>  Our perception was that shortening expiry
>>times is generally a more cost-effective way of economizing on disk.
>
>Why not make it an option that each site could choose to enable or disable
>depending on the relative cost of disk sectors and CPU cycles at that site?

Basically because we didn't have time to do everything, and we perceived
this one as having insufficient payoff to make up for the impact on
performance, compatibility, and complexity.  Almost any feature has some
chance of being useful to *someone*, but when one is not trying to solve
all the world's problems (which C News is not -- we'll settle for 90%),
including "just one more feature" is always a judgement call.
-- 
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu