Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1a 12/4/83; site rlgvax.UUCP 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