Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!umich!ox.com!ox.com!emv From: emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Dumb Question. Message-ID: Date: 7 Mar 91 06:04:01 GMT References: <817@mara.cognet.ucla.edu> Sender: usenet@ox.com (Usenet News Administrator) Organization: OTA Limited Partnership, Ann Arbor MI. Lines: 35 In-Reply-To: kroger@scarecrow.cognet.ucla.edu's message of 6 Mar 91 05:55:34 GMT In article <817@mara.cognet.ucla.edu> kroger@scarecrow.cognet.ucla.edu (James Kroger) writes: Question: how is one supposed to know what these programs do? The comments at the beginning always say something like "this is version 7 of the fourth release of binshellarchthing with modifications to the processthing to be compatible with the otherthing. Cut here." I never have any idea what the program is supposed to do. Why don't people say "this program does x y z...?" It's not always obvious to the author of the program how to describe what it does to other people in prose that they are likely to understand. Code-writing skills and blurb-writing skills do not necessarily go together. This can be especially true of the various esoteric bits of software that get flung around the net to solve very particular problems, the answer of course is "read the source". I would encourage people who write programs that make shar bundles to allow an option that would put the README file (or its moral equivalent) in the front part of the first shar bundle so that there's more text to look at. Unfortunately some don't, and you just have to look at the package a little more closely to determine what's inside. comp.archives attempts to post things which are roughly 24 lines long and express in reasonable detail what programs are supposed to do. I'll occasionally put in something more like a "review" than an "announcement" since users often have a clearer picture of what's going on than authors. You might want to add that to your reading list when looking for stuff. -- Msen Edward Vielmetti /|--- moderator, comp.archives emv@msen.com