Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site sdcc7.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!qantel!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdcc3!sdcc7!ln63fkn From: ln63fkn@sdcc7.UUCP (Paul van de Graaf) Newsgroups: net.news.group Subject: Ban the binaries! Message-ID: <162@sdcc7.UUCP> Date: Fri, 8-Nov-85 11:04:58 EST Article-I.D.: sdcc7.162 Posted: Fri Nov 8 11:04:58 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 11-Nov-85 06:42:46 EST References: <748@bu-cs.UUCP> <1778@peora.UUCP> Reply-To: ln63fkn@sdcc7.UUCP (Paul van de Graaf) Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center Lines: 40 In article <1778@peora.UUCP> jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) writes: [ In response to a proposal to ban posting binaries ] >But some of us don't have compilers, because we bought our machines back >in the early days, and so have small macs that can't compile... So, Upgrade your Mac! Buy a decent compiler! Subscribe to Compuserve! Join a User Group! I suppose Mac owners are SO CHEAP they want the other Usenet sites to pay for their upgrades :-). As it is now, the backbone sites only support their "free" software. Net.sources.mac sets a bad precedent by posting only binaries. Now we have the Amiga & Atari ST. Can we afford to post binaries for these machines? OF COURSE NOT! Suppose Hack was distributed as 108 binaries... Usenet would probably no longer exist. Binaries are bad for many reasons: 1.) Very Poor bandwidth. 7 bits of ASCII ~= 7 bits of code. A 5 line "hello world" program generates about 4K bytes of code on a VAX. 2.) Not Human readable. Enough said. 3.) Not portable. Might end up with 3 binaries of the same program for the Mac, Amiga, and ST. A well written C program with a lot of #ifdefs might serve all three. 4.) Repetition. A bug or upgrade usually requires a second post. A context diff or ed script usually suffices for sources. Also, the same runtime, stdio or floating point libraries can get posted numerous times with binaries. 5.) Shareware concerns. Enough said. The only thing worse that's worse than binaries is assembly language, but at least it's human readable. [ well... some of it is :-) ] Let's get rid of binaries now, or at least restrict them to moderated groups. Paul van de Graaf sdcsvax!sdcc7!ln63fkn U. C. San Diego