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From: webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups
Subject: Re: Making binary groups obsolete (was Re:Are binary groups necessary?)
Message-ID: <321@brandx.rutgers.edu>
Date: Sat, 8-Aug-87 23:09:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: brandx.321
Posted: Sat Aug  8 23:09:45 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Aug-87 13:02:36 EDT
References: <266@brandx.rutgers.edu> <8225@utzoo.UUCP> <272@brandx.rutgers.edu> <25134@sun.uucp>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 67
Summary: sources made easier due to common accessable compiler
Xref: mnetor news.admin:815 news.groups:1337

In article <25134@sun.uucp>, chuq%plaid@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
> >Can we keep it to an adult level?
> 
> Obviously not.

?????

> In the Macintosh world, most of the binary stuff posted is stuff posted from
> off the net -- gotten from a source and passed around.  There is no source
> available in any way, shape, or form.  

Huh?  Do they burn it or something?  Or is it that they have those
funny new modems that can transfer binaries but not sources?  Or are
you saying that people don't post the sources because of the copyright
notices in them (although they feel free to post derivative works
created by compilers)?

> It has also been shown that for the
> Mac sources are actually larger and less useful than binaries -- less useful
> because there are enough different development environments that the only
> way of ensuring that someone can use something is by passing the compiled
> application.

Right.  Recall I didn't claim that binaries were pointless in the
current state of affairs.  Just that they were suboptimum and would be
unneeded if a public domain C compiler were written (which I volunteered
to write myself given a few trivial incentives).

> Frankly, I would guess that few people want or need sources.  If most of the
> Mac stuff came to me in source form, I'd probably trash it untouched -- I
> don't have the time or inclination to try to convince something to compile
> just so I can see if I want to use it, and I certainly wouldn't bother

If it were developed on a compiler that you had access to, it would
not be a time consuming matter to compile it (although I will always
maintain that it is foolish to compile unread sources -- although less
foolish that trusting binaries you didn't compile yourself).

> hacking soemthing from Aztec C to Lightspeed simply because some "higher
> authority" has decided that binaries are not acceptible to the network.

Sigh, looks like you have mistaken me for the backbone or something.

> Remember, what works for Un?x systems may not work as well for other
> operating systems.  Don't over-simplfy your reality.

[Well gee, if it is `my' reality, then I will do whatever I bloody
well please with it.]  I get this feeling that you and others are
trying to maintain that today's micro's are such simple-minded systems
that they can't handle source generated by two different programmers.
If this is the case, then perhaps the net will have to suffer along
with binaries until the MacIntosh, Amiga, St, and IBM PC reach the
level of development of my Apple IIc.  I had thought that all they
were missing was a public domain C compiler, but perhaps there is
something else lacking in their spirit.

> We live and learn, but not the wiser grow -- John Pomfret (1667-1703)

I think I would have more respect for Mr. Pomfret if he had not used
the pronoun ``we'' when all that was appropriate was the first person
singular and he probably meant the second person plural, but wanted to
appear polite.  More straightforward is:

  You live and learn.  Or you don't live long.  -- Lazarus Long
             (as introduced into this timestream by Robert A. Heinlein in 1973)

------ BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber)