Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!nrl-cmf!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!nelson From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Subject: Re: Source ARCs are inappropriate! Message-ID: Date: 26 Oct 88 17:46:18 GMT Article-I.D.: sun.NELSON.88Oct26134617 References: <7119@dasys1.UUCP> <4457@bsu-cs.UUCP> <7194@dasys1.UUCP> <1314@mtunb.ATT.COM> Sender: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu Reply-To: nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu Followup-To: talk.politics.news Organization: Clarkson University Lines: 29 In-reply-to: dmt@mtunb.ATT.COM's message of 26 Oct 88 12:15:22 GMT Ok, guys. Let's face it -- Tom is correct in that archives of source files cost more to transmit than just the source files themselves. And everyone else is correct in that archives are more convenient and more usual in the PC domain, which after all, is the intended domain. And they are also correct in that shar files can easily get truncated. I have thought of a solution which will make everyone happy. We need to distribute everything in shar format, including those few files that really are binary (they get uuencoded, of course). Included in the shar file is a verbose listing of the arc file that contained the sources in the first place. We need a pair of programs, arc2shar and shar2arc, that will change an archive file into one or more shar files and back again. These programs can assume that Howard Chu's port of ARC to Unix is available. Each shar file should stand on its own, so that the parts can arrive out of order. Another advantage of this system is that you never get a totally unusable arc file, since it's made up on the spot. arc2shar should automatically detect binaries and uuencode them. They should both be written in C and should not assume the presence of uuencode or sh. In other words, the programs should be portable to MS-LOSS. Tom Neff is going to write these programs, because he is the one who is kvetching about the current situation. If Tom refuses to write them, then he abrogates his right to complain. -- --russ (nelson@clutx [.bitnet | .clarkson.edu]) To surrender is to remain in the hands of barbarians for the rest of my life. To fight is to leave my bones exposed in the desert waste.