Xref: utzoo comp.sources.d:6590 comp.sources.wanted:15545 alt.sources.d:1550 alt.sources.wanted:997 news.groups:28327 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!emory!tridom!wht From: wht (Warren Tucker) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d,comp.sources.wanted,alt.sources.d,alt.sources.wanted,news.groups Subject: Re: comp.sources.reviewed -> comp.sources.posix (+ c.s.u controversy) Message-ID: <1991Mar2.194702.18667@tridom.uucp> Date: 2 Mar 91 19:19:00 GMT References: <1991Feb28.053121.7739@rick.doc.ca> <1991Feb28.160555.8446@sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM> <1991Mar1.082855.149@tfl.dk> Sender: wht@tridom.uucp (Warren H. Tucker) Reply-To: wht@n4hgf.Mt-Park.GA.US Organization: Amateur Radio Station N4HGF Lines: 110 In-Reply-To: <1991Mar1.163137.293@twinsun.com> Status: OR In article <1991Mar1.163137.293@twinsun.com> eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) writes: >This suggests that for sanity's sake, the newsgroup will stick to Posix >(or at least Posix-like) applications. It also suggests that competent >reviewers will check for Posix conformance. This will indeed be a >service to the computing community. My 2e-02 cents worth on c.s.u/c.s.m and the article subject. C.S.M/C.S.U/C.S.R BABBLE, ER, DISCUSSION ---------------------------------------- I love how somebody recently said "[I enter into this discussion carefully]." I appreciate the mammoth job of moderating c.s.u and understand how long periods of time can pass with no activity. I suspect Mr. $alz of having to commit paid commerce so he has shekels for gas to and from work. This obviously takes him away from net.demands. I pass no judgment upon him and have no opinion on "what we should do about c.s.u." c.s.m is a very good alternative for distribution. Brandon was and Kent is very helpful in getting releases organized and sane. Both have saved me from extremely red faces (not that it hasn't been Pink a few times anyway :-)). But there is where it stops. This has been fine for me. Between (c.s.u) heavy testing with delays and (c.s.m) administrative help only with blindingly fast transmission some perceive a void. comp.sources.reviewed seems to me a viable middle ground. Let me use my ECU as a straw dog for comparing the various groups. I sent a thoroughly nauseating posting, 2.70, my first large one, through alt.sources and got my first healthy taste of flames and good suggestions. Only a few people came forward, but enough to get OS version differences and other issues settled. Alt.sources gave me the chance for a smoke test and resulted in a sounder offering. I submitted ECU 2.74 to comp.source.unix a couple of years ago. It was delayed (I might offer that it was about the time the Smithsonian astronomical package and other large stuff was going through). I o got tired of waiting o upraded the program to 2.8 during that time. While nothing came out on the net, the ultimate offering did benefit from the delay. For me, at least, I often find that no matter how hard I work on a business letter, I usually find improvements I could have soon after I mail it. So, c.s.u was a plus. I submitted 2.8 to the net via c.s.m. It was then that my great Q.A. friend, Tom Betz (tbetz@upaya) came forward with all manner of bugs, suggestions, and best of all, encouragement. He put the program through more hoops and advanced use than I very likely ever will. When it came time for ECU 3, I had added new features that I and Tom could test, but also "experimental" features neither of us could test well or at all: various terminals for non-ANSI support, the ISC port attempt and the GCC environment. As a result, after 6 patches future downloaders will have to know about and hunt for (thanks for the patchlog, Kent!), ECU 3 is stable. Had c.s.reviewed been around, a ready mechanism would have been in place that perhaps would have eliminated *all* those patches. While the net would have had to wait for ECU 3 a while longer (breathlessly, no doubt :-)), many would also have been spared seeing a rash of patches, including one that Broke the published version and had to have a patch to a patch. Now, you may say, "Warren, c.s.r may have kept you from making several knee jerk postings, but some of us are more mature and careful in our submissions." I agree in part. There are many wonderful offerings in all the groups which have never required a single patch. I wish I were that good ;->, but I am not alone in trying to code for environments I don't have. Patches are inevitable in those cases. C.S.M/C.S.U/C.S.R BOTTOM LINE ----------------------------- c.s.r would o provide a more reliable and organized way to find motivated tester-critics o increase the number of cases and environments for testing o improve the end product and reduce patch frequency o more than compensate for delays in net.delivery. o should be a comp.sources."new-and-augmenting" not a comp.sources. "all-is-made-new" or comp.sources."death-to-$alz". C.S.POSIX COMMENT ----------------- UNIX C and shell scripts, VMS C and shell scripts, Perl scripts, awk scripts, MSDOS C, assembler and Pascal, X11 bitmaps, FORTRAN, Amiga C, standalone man pages and a host of other kinds of "source" have shown up there. o Many/most of these have no POSIX applicability; let's not exclude 90% of reality from the comp.sources."new-thang" o POSIX is better defined than the ANSI C pseudo-standard debacle and both have laudable goals; yet, both doomed us to not one extra environment to support, but a rash of mutltivariate interpretations of what different providers thought these standards meant; just say "no, FALSE, 0, EOF, NIL, NULL, NUL, "(null)", NAK, NAK, NAK, CAN, EOT, ...-.-" (but I diverse). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Warren Tucker, TuckerWare emory!n4hgf!wht or wht@n4hgf.Mt-Park.GA.US "An ANSI C elephant: just like the real one, but the position, shape and length of the trunk and tail are left to the vendor's discretion." -- me -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Warren Tucker, Tridom Corporation, gatech!n4hgf!wht, wht@n4hgf.Mt-Park.GA.US When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. -Edmund Burke