Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: UUNET Funds C News Development
Message-ID: <1991May1.210823.100@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Wed, 1 May 1991 21:08:23 GMT
References: <131119@uunet.UU.NET> <1991May1.193937.29962@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1991May1.193937.29962@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> Talking of complex sys files, why not a sys file compiler which generates
>the transition tables for a finite state automaton.  Each incoming article
>(or at least the PATH, DISTRIBUTION and NEWSGROUPS lines) would be fed
>through the FSA to efficiently discover the list of sites to which this
>should be forwarded.

Geoff and I have talked about things like this in the past.  Profiling has
consistently said that it's not worth the trouble:  newsgroup matching is
not that large a share of the processing time.  Of course, we were running
timings on sites with modest numbers of outgoing feeds, and a place like
uunet might well get different profiling results...
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry