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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!whuxle!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!amd70!noao!hao!seismo!rlgvax!guy
From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news,net.unix,net.flame,net.misc
Subject: Re: readnews considered harmful: CHALLENGE
Message-ID: <2040@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Jun-84 19:07:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.2040
Posted: Wed Jun 20 19:07:18 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jun-84 07:25:51 EDT
References: <137@joshua.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
Lines: 30

> but then there is all the crap in readnews that attempts to sort by topic,
> that sort of thing.

Not in news 2.10.*, there isn't.  A news which does sort by topic - whether
done within the program, or with the "sort" command, or whatever - is infinitely
superior to one that doesn't, regardless of how much simpler the one that
doesn't is.  Rating programs purely on their conformance to a "UNIX philosophy",
rather than on how well they meet the needs of their users, is incorrect.
It is a *pain* to follow a discussion with the current news user interface;
the 2.11 interface which sorts by topic has got to be an improvement.

> I challenge everyone out there in netland to come up with a shell script,
> possibly (though preferably not) aided by a couple of small programs--say,
> one hundred lines max--that will do the major functions of readnews, which
> I view as scanning new news items and displaying them if requested, while
> at the same time maintaining the .newsrc database.

It should also supply, at a minimum, the ability to easily reply to a
posting by mail or by a followup posting.

> Using history should not be necessary.

"history"?  If you mean the file "/usr/lib/news/history", damn straight
it's necessary; a site fed by two or more news sites can receive two copies
of an article.  Posting both of them would be annoying; the history file
is needed to filter out those duplicates.  It also is useful for mapping
article IDs in the References: list to local article files.

	Guy Harris
	{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy