Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: (C News) limit filesize and inews
Message-ID: <1991Jan7.182907.13583@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1991Jan6.004313.8792@zoo.toronto.edu> <3463@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <1991Jan6.073729.21354@zoo.toronto.edu> <3464@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 1991 18:29:07 GMT

In article <3464@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> sob@tmc.edu (Stan Barber) writes:
>... We'll just disagree on this point. I guess I've just had to work
>around more problems on more different hardware/software environments where
>the people wanting the work done would not take "no, the computer OS is
>broken, and I just refuse to make it work" as a valid answer. 

They held you at gunpoint while saying this, I take it? :-) :-)

(One advantage of working for free is that nobody can threaten to put your
paycheck on hold over a disagreement...)

>>... Whether
>>I had one to test is utterly irrelevant to whether the changes are too
>>costly to be worthwhile.)
>
>Henry, how do you really know if the changes are too costly unless you have run
>a test? ...

I don't have to run a test to know that modifying dozens of shell files to
work around a shell bug is costly in time and effort, both in doing it and
in maintaining it later.  "Cost" is not just execution time.

>If the size of the dbz/dbm file is too large, you could import the (dreaded)
>B-news USG history directory/file format. Odds are that none of those files
>would be big enough...

Until news traffic grows a bit more or the user reduces his size limit
further, that is.  This does not really solve the problem.
-- 
If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
what was the question?                 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry