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From: rick@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: several problems with news software
Message-ID: <44018@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>
Date: Fri, 10-Jul-87 17:20:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: beno.44018
Posted: Fri Jul 10 17:20:43 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jul-87 12:00:18 EDT
References: <608@nonvon.UUCP>
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 31
Summary: loud mouthed jerk

None of those problems exist in patch level 8. That's why no one else
is complaining about them.

Before ranting about the poor quality of the FREE software you have
received, why don't you check and see where you screwed up. Because thats
what has happened, YOU SCREWED UP. I am guessing that you screwed up
in applying patch TWO, because that's where the makefile was changed to
add rextern.o to the dependancy list for checknews. (Try doing a 
"make clean;rm -f Makefile.dst defs.h;make -f Makefile.dst". I'll bet
it starts working.)

I will resist the temptation to say that if you don't like the quality of
something you have been given free, write something better.

However, the quality of the newscode is actually better than a lot of the
software we have paid for.  (This does not mean that the news software is high
quality stuff.) Welcome to the real world. That's the kind of program
you usually get paid to work on. They all don't look like something out of
a textbook. It would be nice if they did, but reality isn't like that.
A hell of a lot of people have managed to fix little things like that
without "days of analysis". It shouldn't have taken more than 10 minutes
to find and fix. First you use grep to find the declarations, then you
change the make dependency. (Of course this presumes you understand
C programs and make.)

I believe that the "Solution" you are looking for is to choose a good
college after you have graduated from high school and learn some skills
so you future employer can assign you to work on other peoples programs
as well as your own.

---rick