Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Who generates the `Lines:' header field?
Message-ID: <1990Aug6.024749.28260@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Aug5.064837.23881@foster.avid.oz> <1990Aug5.075054.11185@zoo.toronto.edu> <1990Aug5.234520.19583@hayes.fai.alaska.edu>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 90 02:47:49 GMT

In article <1990Aug5.234520.19583@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> wisner@hayes.fai.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) writes:
>[bytes vs. lines] And at any rate, it's not my news reader that cares
>about the size of an article -- it's *me*. I like to have an idea of
>what I'm getting into, and I generally find it easier to grok a line
>count than a character count.

I find it easier still to glance at rn's percentage-of-article-yet-seen
readout, which is character-count based and thus more accurately reflects
how long it will take to splat it up on the screen.

It is admittedly a nuisance that NNTP won't supply the size of the article,
but to some extent this reflects a fundamental design bug in NNTP:  it tries
to be a reading interface AND a posting interface AND a transmission interface
all rolled into one, and consequently is not well thought out for any of
those purposes :-).  (Rev 2 may be better.)
-- 
The 486 is to a modern CPU as a Jules  | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
Verne reprint is to a modern SF novel. |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry