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From: jef@well.UUCP (Jef Poskanzer)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: New News (not GNU News)
Message-ID: <14853@well.UUCP>
Date: 7 Dec 89 02:42:53 GMT
References: <1603@intercon.com>
Reply-To: Jef Poskanzer <jef@well.sf.ca.us>
Organization: Paratheo-Anametamystikhood Of Eris Esoteric, Ada Lovelace Cabal
Lines: 15

A couple of years ago I designed a SQL database for news.  It supported
all the operations required by then-available news transports and readers,
and of course it allowed all sorts of new operations.  Retrofitting all
of said transports and readers to use it was too big a job to interest me
then, and it would be an even bigger job now.  But it seems to me that if
you're really interested in re-designing news from scratch, a good place
to start would be the *interface* between the underlying database and
the transports and readers.  If this interface was nicely specified, then
providing alternate implementations (SQL vs. Unix filesystem vs. MS-DOS
filesystem vs. whatever) would suddenly become a hell of a lot easier.
---
Jef

  Jef Poskanzer  jef@well.sf.ca.us  {ucbvax, apple, hplabs}!well!jef
                          One size fits all.