Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!burl!codas!mtune!rutgers!pleasant
From: pleasant@rutgers.rutgers.edu (Mel Pleasant)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Map expiration dates
Message-ID: <7815@rutgers.rutgers.edu>
Date: 11 Jan 88 18:29:20 GMT
References: <2323@cxsea.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 52

In article <2323@cxsea.UUCP> blm@cxsea.UUCP (Brian Matthews) writes:

> I was wondering why the uucp maps posted to comp.mail.maps have such long
> expiration periods, about a month and a half.
> . . . .

Back when I did postings only once a month, being late by one day meant that
sites would be without maps at all.  Like you, I thought that this wouldn't
be such a big deal.  As you point out, the maps are read by a program and
after that they aren't needed, right?  Well, wrongo!!  The number of people
who came out of the woodwork complaining of loss of access to map files was
astounding.  I still find it hard to believe!!  There are many more people,
more than one would imagine, that actually use the map files to generate
paths by hand.  When the map files expire they're at a loss.  You would
think that any one person wouldn't use the map files to manually generate
paths all that often.  After all, a person is likely to generate a path to
another site once and use the path until it fails, right?  Well, the number
of complaints I received would indicate that if this assertion is true then
the number of people manually generating paths is significant.

At any rate, the postings are built around a 30 day cycle.  Even with the
new distribution system in place, the cycle still exists but it isn't so
obvious.  We are now posting on the 1st of each month those map files that
have not been updated in 30 days.  Given the 45 day expiration period, this
should mean that the files are always present.  We could change the
expiration period by making it shorter, even shorter than 30 days.  This
will have an impact on those who manually generate paths.  Ultimately, we
may all decide that this is the way to go anyway.  If we do, I just wanted
to make sure that we did so with the knowledge that there would be persons
affected by such a change.

---

Given this response, there will no doubt be other comments vis a vis the map
posting procedures.  I'm all ears.  For those of you interested in lowering
the volume, here is a challenge for you.  How can it be done such that we
never have to make a full one-shot posting of all of the files ever again?
Well, let's make it slightly simpler ...  A change in the procedure *may*
require another full posting just to get it started.  Ok, given that we do
one more full posting, now answer the same question e.g. no more full
postings beyond what's needed to start a new procedure....  The problem with
"diff" postings is that it doesn't do you any good if you don't have the
original file.  You're also sunk if "diff" postings arrive out of order or
not at all, something not unheard of in the netnews system.  Depending upon
"diff" postings in the general case would mean full postings at some larger
interval.  Yuck....

The UUCP Mapping Project
-- 

                                  Mel Pleasant
 {backbone}!rutgers!pleasant   pleasant@rutgers.edu     mpleasant@zodiac.bitnet