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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Posting uuencoded files without description
Message-ID: <1091@looking.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Nov-87 01:33:59 EST
Article-I.D.: looking.1091
Posted: Sun Nov  1 01:33:59 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Nov-87 10:48:12 EST
References: <12013@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 35

I agree absolutely on this.  Not just for uuencoded files but for
plain readable source files.

Most of the sources posted to comp.sources moderated groups have
almost no description.   If you bother to search through for a readme or
doc file, you might find something, although quite often it is in nroff
format.   Or the article is headed with:

"Here's the release of DKUTXZ that I promised you.  This is much better
than the old DKUTXZ, although watch out if you have a DMC/34."

I (and most others) don't have the time to unpack, examine and possibly
format doc files of postings and binaries that come along.

If you post a program,

	W R I T E   A N   A D   F O R   I T ! ! ! 

If you want people to use a program, you have to put something in it
to say,
	a) what it does
	b) Why I would want to do what it does
		(ie. if it's a variant of another program, why do I want it?)
	c) What it runs on.

And clearly, assuming no prior knowledge of something unless it's a very
specific program.


I end up passing by most source and binary programs because you can't figure
out what they are without a lot of work.  They're just wasted net bandwidth
(and lots of it) to a lot of people.

-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473