Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!mordor!styx!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!jade!eris!mwm
From: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: ARC & similar things...
Message-ID: <2137@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Thu, 8-Jan-87 17:43:54 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.2137
Posted: Thu Jan  8 17:43:54 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Jan-87 21:39:41 EST
References: <2280@well.UUCP> <340@oliveb.UUCP> <8232@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <5017@amdahl.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 38

It hasn't been to long ago that a similar thing was gone through on
the net. Turns out there is a serious problem with pre-compressing
then uuencoding things before posting them, as opposed to just
uuencoding them. Namely, the backbone sites (you know, the people who
pay the bills for getting all that neat software to you :-), and most
anybody else with sense, runs news through compress before putting it
on the phone lines to any other site. Even notes sites have this
facility.

The problem shows up when you consider that:

	(binary) -> "ARC" -> uuencode -> compress

seems to produce noticably larger files than

	(binary) -> uuencode -> compress.

(ARC is in quotes, as I don't recall the culprit last time; it was
some micro-based file squisher, though).

In terms of traffic, detection w/out correction is a loose. It makes
it easier to find out that you've got a munged file, but you still
wind up with requests for reposts. And it takes extra bandwidth to do
the checking, for a net traffic increase. [Hmmm - maybe we could
convince new to do the checking and re-request broken messages?]

So the only real benefit to be gained from ARC is the archiving of
multiple files. Aren't there non-compacting things to do this? For
instance, tar (and I can provide a de-tar program for the Amiga; use
it all the time)? Also, last time I looked, ARC didn't handle
subdirectories, whereas tar does so quite nicely (very important for
shipping mg around!).

Of course, if ARC does handle directories, and the ARC -> uuencode ->
compress path DOES NOT generate larger files than uuencode -> compress
path, then this is all bilge. But someone should check.