Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!execu!sequoia!rpp386!jfh From: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) Newsgroups: alt.sources.d Subject: Re: Beyond shar (Re: shars and security concerns.) Message-ID: <18275@rpp386.cactus.org> Date: 3 May 90 04:32:35 GMT References: <662@n4hgf.uucp> <1152@chinacat.Unicom.COM> <518@cpsolv.CPS.COM> <1203@chinacat.Unicom.COM> <2641.263ea7ac@mccall.com> Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) Organization: Lone Star Cafe and BBS Service Lines: 25 In article peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >I also agree that shars are getting out of hand. "shar" was a good idea for >its time, but it's gotten too big, too fast. I think it's long past the >time for a standard text archive format on Usenet. > >I vote for the Software Tools format: The reason shar's were such a hot idea was that you could unwrap shar's with tools you knew you had on the receiving side already. The tools pre-dated the sharchive format ... The problem some people are pointing out with the new shars is that they are overly complex and make unarchiving on non-UNIX machines more difficult than they need be. A simple, exact, format needs to be specified that is =compatible= with the tools which already exist. Then you can create interpreters for this compatible format. But don't create a completely incompatible format expecting people to follow, because they won't ... I am certain Warren Tucker and the other busybodies are well intended in their efforts, however, sometimes less is more. And this just happens to be one of those times, in my humble opinion. -- John F. Haugh II UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh Ma Bell: (512) 832-8832 Domain: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org