Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!network.ucsd.edu!slamont From: slamont@network.ucsd.edu (Steve Lamont) Newsgroups: alt.sources.d Subject: Re: Read this if you're having trouble unpacking Tcl Message-ID: <4411@network.ucsd.edu> Date: 28 Dec 90 19:56:17 GMT References: <97261639@bfmny0.BFM.COM> <4410@network.ucsd.edu> Distribution: alt Organization: Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA Lines: 40 In article meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) writes: >On the other hand, ever since I've switched to compress + uuencode + >shar for shipping out large sets of patches, I've had fewer people >complain about news/mail trashing the file or subsequent patches >failing, since some 'helpful' intermediary decided to put a newline in >column 79, or change tabs to spaces, or.... Good point. This isn't a religious issue with me, however, as a previous poster pointed out, the whole world isn't running UN*X. For postings that make sense *only* in a UN*X environment, compress and uuencode clearly make sense, since they're common within that environment. For other sources that have applicability to other environments (graphics ray tracers, for instance), it would seem that a cleartext approach would achieve the widest dissemination most easily. My gut feeling is that rather than go to compression and uuencoding, for most cases, fixing the shar wrapper to deal with long lines would be the most straightforward answer. Again, however, the reason why I've poked my nose into this issue is somewhat orthogonal to the compression/nocompression discussion. I'm more interested in encouraging those who do post sources to include some cleartext explanatory note identifying just what it is that they're posting. On more than one occasion, I've gone through the effort to unshar and even build something that I found was of no interest. I'm certain that I've passed by postings that were of interest but the name was too cryptic for me to decipher. Anyhow, thanks for the consideration. spl (the p stands for previous poster pointed??? I think I've just overdrawn my 'p' ration for today...) -- Steve Lamont, SciViGuy -- 1882p@cc.nps.navy.mil -- a guest on network.ucsd.edu NPS Confuser Center / Code 51 / Naval Postgraduate School / Monterey, CA 93943 What is truth and what is fable, where is Ruth and where is Mabel? - Director/producer John Amiel, heard on NPR