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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