Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!rayssd!galaxia!dave
From: dave@galaxia.zone1.com (David H. Brierley)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Archive server mods
Message-ID: <522@galaxia.zone1.com>
Date: 25 Oct 88 03:22:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: galaxia.522
References: <668@n8emr.UUCP>
Reply-To: dave@galaxia.zone1.com (David H. Brierley)
Organization: Dave's Very Own Personal System
Lines: 49

In article <668@n8emr.UUCP> lwv@n8emr.UUCP (Larry W. Virden) writes:
>
>A number of sites appear to be running the same mail based archive server
>software (send a help msg, index msg, or send msg).  What I have noticed
>is that if I use a path command to tell these sites to return items via
>my bitnet address, the software gets truncated at 80 columns, tabs turn into
>multiple spaces, and some characters get mangled.

Am I being overly single-minded today or were other people bothered by
this complaint?  This guy wants me to change my software because his
mail delivery program is not capable of handling the data?  Gimme a
break!  My software works perfectly fine for the systems it was
originally intended for, which includes any system running an
intelligent mail system.  The systems that use my archive server
software tend to appreciate the service I provide.  If they whine and
fuss like this guy they tend to get a response of "if you dont like the
way my archive server works feel free to go elsewhere".  Particularily
in the case in point, where it is not my software that is causing the
problem but his.  On the other hand, if this guy were to ask for a copy
of the software so that he could figure out how to get it to work with
his mail system and then send me back the changes I would *consider*
putting those changes into the program as long as they didn't break
anything else.

In my opinion, this guys whinings are tantamount to biting the hand that
feeds you or at the very least accusing the person of cruelty because
they gave you a hamburger and you really wanted a pork chop.  If you are
hungry enough you will take the hamburger and learn to live with it.  If
you want the software that the various archive sites have available you
should learn to accept what they are offering and massage it into
whatever format your system requires.

One final note:  please dont get the idea that I write my programs to
tailor fit into a tiny little world and if you dont fit that world then
you are out of luck.  Most of the programs I write start out on one of
the systems at work and then quickly get propogated to the other systems
at work and usually to my system at home.  In the process the programs
are required to be portable enough to run under BSD2.10, BSD4.[23],
SunOS3.2, SunOS4.0, Pyramid OSx 4.[014], System V, the dreaded VMS, and
sometimes the even more dreaded MS-DOS.  Oh yeah, did I mention HP-UX?
Anyway, you get the idea.  By the time the program has gone through all
of that, if it's not portable it's never going to be.  Ah, but I just
realized that I just reinforced my snobbery.  Almost all of the systems
I just named are UNIX systems.  I guess I'll have to dust off my JCL
decks and brush up on CICS and TSO.
-- 
David H. Brierley
Home: dave@galaxia.zone1.com   ...!rayssd!galaxia!dave
Work: dhb@rayssd.ray.com       {sun,decuac,gatech,necntc,ukma}!rayssd!dhb