Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!phri!roy
From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: ^D embedded in PS files
Summary: Fie on PRINT/DELETE!
Message-ID: <3779@phri.UUCP>
Date: 23 May 89 00:52:45 GMT
References: <8905221304.AA14261@decwrl.dec.com>
Reply-To: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY)
Lines: 32

batcheldern@hannah.dec.com (Ned Batchelder, PostScript Eng.) writes:
> On VMS systems, you can PRINT/DELETE a file. [...]  By having an explicit
> handshake between the spooler and the printer, the spooler knows that, in
> fact, the job is completed, and if the user gets up from his desk and
> walks over to the printer, he will be able to pick the job up and walk
> away.

	Ned deserves lots of praise for his wonderful n-up printing work a
few years ago, but I think he missed the point by a mile on this one.  By
having an explicit handshake between the printer and the spooler process,
all the process knows is that the printer *says* the job is complete.
That's better than just shoveling the data at the printer and hoping it can
cope, but it sure isn't a firm promise that you can pick up the output and
walk away with it.  Somebody might have loaded the printer with the wrong
forms.  The printer might have jammed and not detected it.  It might have
run out of toner (our most common form of "silent failures" on print jobs).
Maybe the printer had a software failure and is lying about the job status.
Or, maybe somebody simply got to the printer first and took your output by
mistake (or even on purpose).

	The point is, I think PRINT/DELETE is a *big* misfeature to put in
a printer spooler.  Maybe it should be some hard-to-get-at option for
internal use, but not as a easily misused command line option.  For once, I
can't dump on VMS for this one; the Unix spoolers have similar options,
with exactly the same problem.  In fact, it's probably even worse on Unix.
It's a lot easier to type "-r" by mistake than "/DELETE".  I know.  I've
done it.  More than once.
-- 
Roy Smith, System Administrator
Public Health Research Institute
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"