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.