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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!sri-unix!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!brandx.rutgers.edu!webber
From: webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Of Backbonisms and Misreading RFCs.
Message-ID: <324@brandx.rutgers.edu>
Date: Sun, 9-Aug-87 22:54:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: brandx.324
Posted: Sun Aug  9 22:54:12 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Aug-87 03:47:44 EDT
References: <267@brandx.UUCP> <7200004@iaoobelix.UUCP> <289@brandx.rutgers.edu> <13824@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 51
Summary: ??
To: webber@aramis.rutgers.edu, trudel@topaz.rutgers.edu


In article <13824@topaz.rutgers.edu>, trudel@topaz.rutgers.edu (Jonathan D.) writes:
> In article <319@brandx.rutgers.edu> webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber) writes:
> 
> > I never said `` don't allow binaries on the net ''.  Doubtless you
> > have been hanging around the backbone so long that you think everyone
> > wishes to destroy anything that doesn't please them.  I am a more
> > tolerant sort.  I have proposed (elsewhere) to make the binary groups
> > pointless by creating a public domain C compiler.
> 
> Doubtless you've been perverting your logic to suit yourself.  Who

Well, first off, it isn't `my' logic.  It is in the public domain.  I
believe that the original author was Gottlob Frege.  As a
constructivist, I too find it sometimes perverse, but I believe that I
have been working within a fundamentally sound subset.  Incidently,
when you pervert your logic, whom do you do it to suit?

> started the whole discussion about "Making binary groups obsolete"???

Well, I have been advocating that people archive these groups for
quite some time so that questions like ``Who started ...'' could be
simply answered.  As near as I can recall, it all began when I
indicated that binaries could be posted to talk.bizzare (something
that has a grand tradition behind it).  Also, I believe I was the
first one to use that phrase in a Subject: line, but the net has been
around for a long time, so there may have been another.

> In *all fairness*, can't you admit that if you make binary groups
> pointless that eliminating them is the next logical step in the
> process? (unless, of course, you like large numbers of pointless
> newsgroups). 

BINGO.  You got it in just one shot.  On odd numbered days I favour a
large number of groups (some of which will inevitably be viewed as
pointless by some people) and on even numbered days I favour getting
rid of all the groups and having just one great big unmoderated group
called ``news.''

Indeed elsewhere I have even said that I favour posting binaries to
the net in certain cases (e.g., when the program was originally coded
in machine code by the author -- machine code generated by compilers
should only be posted to rec.humor).

Besides their benefit as a place for machine code craftsmen, the binary
groups also have some merit as a monument to a time when micros were
so primitive that the only way for people on two different machines to
exchange programs was as binaries (which were often configuration dependent).
But then, I liked net.columbia, which was named as a monument to the
past as well.

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