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From: manis@ubc-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: new moderated newsgroup(s) for Atari ST software distrbution
Message-ID: <863@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Feb-87 13:17:44 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.863
Posted: Tue Feb 24 13:17:44 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Feb-87 07:06:02 EST
References: <882@imagen.UUCP> <1073@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> <1271@husc6.UUCP> <575@viper.UUCP>
Reply-To: manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vincent Manis)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science
Lines: 18
Keywords: newsgroup,atari,st
Xref: utgpu news.groups:429 comp.sys.atari.st:1718

Can I make a radical suggestion about posting of programs? There should be
two acceptable forms: either source code (in any of a reasonably long list
of languages) or binaries+documentation? (Of course, source+documentation
is probably ok too!).

This business of "here's an interesting d.a.; try it" tends to make me skip
postings, not only here but in other newsgroups. Before I run something, I
want to know what it does, what effects it might have on my system, and what
limitations it might have.

I'm not looking for elaborate documentation. Just a simple statement of how
to use it (UNIX man page format would be fine), in a form that can be viewed
via LESS or printed, would be great.

It might be argued that this policy might restrict postings; however, I
suspect that the people who do all this wonderful programming would be more
than happy to take the extra time to document their programs, if it results
in wider use.