Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!deimos!usenet!umree!jmd
From: jmd@umree.isc.umr.edu (Jim Dumser)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Encoding and compression for cbip (Was: xx vs. uu)
Message-ID: <466@umrisca.usenet.umr.edu>
Date: 15 Feb 90 16:57:21 GMT
References: <1513@krafla.rhi.hi.is> <AUSTIN.90Feb13152915@bucsf.bu.edu> <52155@bu.edu.bu.edu>
Sender: usenet@usenet.umr.edu
Reply-To: jmd@umree.UUCP (Jim Dumser)
Organization: EE Dept., Univ. of Mo.-Rolla
Lines: 34

In article <52155@bu.edu.bu.edu> oneill@bass.bu.edu (Brian V O'Neill) writes:
>I think at least for now UUEncoding should continue to be used. XXEncoding
>may work better, but a majority of sites do not have it. I do not know what
>the percentage of BITNET sites connected to UseNet is, but I believe it is
>relatively small.
>
>Perhaps if it can be guaranteed that XXEncoding will be in widespread use,
>then it would be proper for cbip.

This is a valid comment.  But, I don't think it would be too hard to fix.
All you have to do is to post XXEncode as one of the first files to cbip (it
would be UUEncoded, of course) and also offer it someplace unencoded for ftp
(for those that might have problems getting UUEncoded stuff).  This is what
the original author of this discussion suggested.

>As far as compression schemes, this gets back to the discussion on what
>systems are Connected to UseNet - mostly Unix systems, and few PCs. I am not
>aware of a fully operational, portable ZIP program for Unix, and I don't
>even think a portable unpacking program exists for LHArc. Until
>fully-operational, portable versions of these formats are available, they
>should not be used.

But you forget -- we are talking about cbip here, not csu.  These programs
will generally be for DOS systems, where ZIP and LHArc do exist.  Also,
there are un-arcing programs for both that run under Unix so people can test
the integrity of the archive before downloading it.

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