Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!plx!slvblc!dick From: dick@slvblc.UUCP (Dick Flanagan) Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Subject: Re: split, head and tail for MSDOS Summary: Let's lighten up a little bit out there Keywords: split, head, tail, problems Message-ID: <8806250405.AA02788@slvblc.UUCP> Date: 25 Jun 88 04:05:48 GMT References: <5439@ihlpl.ATT.COM> Reply-To: slvblc!dick@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (Dick Flanagan) Organization: SLV Systems Group, Ben Lomond, California Lines: 54 Disclaimer: none In article <5439@ihlpl.ATT.COM> db21@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Dave Beyerl) writes: > I have experienced the following problems when trying to > recompile head and tail from the source that was posted a few > weeks back. > > [comments on problems found porting to Microsoft environment] The contributor of head, tail, and split used a non- Microsoft assembler and compiler. Porting this code to other development environments is obviously left as an exercise for the downloader. 8-) > It is my opinion that this submission was incomplete and > lacking in quality, see items 1 & 3 above. The dependency on > assembly modules recommends that make files be supplied with the > source and/or assembly instructions supplied. The use of compiler > specific functionality, ie. fseek on stdin, recommends that some > information be provided on how this product was built. For these > programs, neither was provided. Without this information, it is > practically impossible to do anything with these programs except > use the provided executables and then who needs the source? I daresay that any source is better than no source, but the best source of all is that from which the application was actually built. And that is what the contributor provided, even it it wasn't in a turn-key, Microsoft-oriented package. > Given the problems I experienced with this posting and > recent discussions on having a source group for DOS, I believe > we are apt to find many frustrated readers/users if the quality > of future postings matches this one. Perhaps by the quality of the contributions you make to comp.binaries.ibm.pc, we can all learn from your example. (1/2 :-) Seriously, I would like to thank the contributor of head, tail, and split, for placing their sources in the Public Domain and I would like to encourage others to share their programs with us as well. And if the tools they use aren't industrial-strength, if their documentation isn't all that complete, and even if they've never even heard of a make file, I would still encourage them to contribute. This is a newsgroup (and a network) for helping, for sharing, for learning. Let's *all* use it in that context . . . please. Dick -- Dick Flanagan, vacation moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc {backbones}!ucbvax!ucscc!slvblc!dick or slvblc!dick@ucscc.ucsc.edu