Path: utzoo!attcan!lsuc!eci386!jmm
From: jmm@eci386.uucp (John Macdonald)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Patch to do semi-truncation of the references line
Message-ID: <1989Nov22.221510.1397@eci386.uucp>
Date: 22 Nov 89 22:15:10 GMT
References: <50079@looking.on.ca> <14936@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Reply-To: jmm@eci386.UUCP (John Macdonald)
Organization: R. H. Lathwell Associates: Elegant Communications, Inc.
Lines: 20

In article <14936@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes:
>I object to a patch being posted before a consensus is reached on
>what the behavior ought to be.

Unless a question is very simple, the easiest way to analyse a problem
is to try a few possible answers and then use the experience gained to
determine the *right* answer.  What is wrong in posting a patch that
allows people to try out a solution?  If it turns out to be wrong or
break things in a bad way, then the few people who try it will turn
it off.  If those who try it discover that it works well beyond their
wildest dreams, then it would suddenly hit the comp.sources.wanted as
"I didn't see it and now I want it, too".

Flaming somebody because they have given us free code is not an action
that I consider beneficial to the ongoing success of the net (although
it probably will not lead to the immanent demise...).
-- 
80386 - hardware demonstrating the fractal nature of warts.   | John Macdonald
EMS/LIM - software demonstrating the fractal nature of warts. |   jmm@eci386