Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!mcdchg!ddsw1!karl
From: karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: PATCH usage
Summary: That's not a good excuse
Message-ID: <1323@ddsw1.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jul 88 18:51:46 GMT
References: <393@sce.UUCP> <1129@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>
Reply-To: karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger)
Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Mundelein, IL
Lines: 38

In article <1129@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) writes:
>In article <393@sce.UUCP> graham@sce.UUCP (Doug Graham) writes:
>>    In a similar vein, I noticed that when "perl" first appeared
>>on the net, it was immediately followed by a large number of
>>patches. (Around 25 I think) Since these patches came so close
>>on the heels of the original source, it seems to me that they
>>must have been available when the original source was posted.
>>Why were they not applied before the source was posted?
>
>I cannot answer for Larry, but for my free IBM-PC editor, Freemacs, it
>is *much* easier to have one distribution with patches than several
>distributions.  I keep a copy of all my distributions and patches
>forever, so I have an incentive to keep the number of distributions
>low.

But the enormous volume engendered by all the patch traffic is the point of
contention.  It is very inefficient to send a 90K original posting, then
200K of patches.  Much, much better to send the original, patched...

Your convenience is a poor excuse for the extra bandwidth consumed.  It's
much better for the *net as a whole* if authors are efficient in the
bandwidth they consume.  The present scheme (send original, then 20+ sets of
context-diff patches) is horridly inefficient.  There have been many recent
episodes of "patch-mania" that illustrate this.

Patch should *not* be used to make wholesale changes to programs over the
net.  It IS a wonderful tool for those "small bugs" -- but when the sum of
the patches gets to the point where you're consuming 50% of the bandwidth of
a repost, you should repost.  Remember, the patch itself is *useless*
without the underlying program, and thus by definition has a limited
audience.  A repost is useful in and of itself, and thus (by definition) has 
a larger audience.  This is even true for programs such as patch itself,
which nearly everyone uses -- if you miss a patch, you must now FIND that
patch to be able to use all the "wonderful" patches which follow.  Ugh.

--
Karl Denninger (ddsw1!karl) Data: (312) 566-8912, Voice: (312) 566-8910
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.    "Quality solutions at a fair price"