Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mandrill!gatech!bloom-beacon!husc6!huma1!fry
From: fry@huma1.HARVARD.EDU (David Fry)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Comp.binaries.mac moderation (FLAME)
Message-ID: <4927@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 11 Jul 88 21:24:52 GMT
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: fry@huma1.UUCP (David Fry)
Organization: Harvard Math Department
Lines: 78


Flame on

	I have been wondering lately about the selection of files that
the  moderator of comp.binaries.mac, Roger Long, sends across the
net.  But today I  saw the worst yet: is it really necessary to
distribute a Perfectionist DA that  does nothing but change the
file attributes of TEXT files so they can be opened  more simply
with Word Perfect?  How many of us have Word Perfect, and how many
of those are transferring files from a PC often enough to warrant
such a program,  which does something that can be done with Word
Perfect itself.

	Comp.binaries.mac has become the place for multi-part game
postings (many  of which have bugs), Humpback jokes, sound
gadgets, and huge multi-part  commercial demos.  I'm still
bothered by the Design Demo posted months ago.  I'm  not
acquainted enough with the USENET hierarchy to compute the cost of
the  Humpback fiasco, including the subsequent "is it a joke,
yeah, it's a joke"  debate, but I bet it would have bought
somebody quite a few Macintoshes.

	Lately some of the programs coming across have even been
accompanied by  apologies from their authors who are sorry they
aren't more important.  If the  programmer himself says "sorry it
doesn't do anything more yet" why are we  interested in seeing it?
 
	I think of comp.binaries.mac as existing to dispense interesting
and  useful programs to USENET users, programs which demonstrate a
new technique or  an unusual idea.  It would be particularly nice
if they have a scientific or  educational bent to them, since
USENET goes to so many universities.  I can  certainly understand
if the author of Perfectionist wanted to write his DA as a  simple
exercise, or as a tool to do something special just for him, or
just  because it was fun.  I write little programs all the time
for those reasons.   But it is the moderator's job to weed them
out.  

	At least we could expect source code for such little programs. 
There's  no reason to comment more on the source code drought,
though.  The weather  analogy in "drought" is appropriate, too:
everyone complains but nobody does  anything about it.

	I can remember several programs from comp.binaries.mac that
represent the  philosophy I have in mind.  1) A French prime
factorization program was posted  over a year ago that
implemented sophisticated techniques that I have never  seen on
a micro before.  Admittedly it is useful to a limited number of
people,  but it was state-of-the-art stuff. 2) MEdit was a free
and ambitious text editor  from Europe that included a macro
language, the first Mac editor to have one.   3) The P.S.B.U.
program posted recently to do hard disk backups, using a 
scripting language.  These programs were different from what you
see on  CompuServe, extended what was currently available, and
were written for  (apparently) altruistic reasons. 

	The moderator may respond that nobody submits those type of
programs any  more.  I don't know what others are doing, but I
have posted several versions of  my GrayView program (including
the latest which has ImageStudio-like editing  features) and my
DispPICT HyperCard XCMD that displays color images inside 
HyperCard.  I don't mean to suggest these are special, but I don't
understand  why they wouldn't be interesting to USENETers; they
are completely free and do  things you can't do otherwise.  I
humbily submitted them, but they never  appeared.

	I don't mean to attack Mr. Long personally, I'm just more and
more  distressed at seeing "Part 3 of 8 GoofyMacGame".  Perhaps
this message will  inspire more careful posting, or inspire more
creative programming.  I also  don't mean to attack the author of
Perfectionist; it was just that DA that set me off. 

Flame Off

David Fry                               fry@huma1.harvard.EDU
Department of Mathematics               fry@huma1.bitnet
Harvard University                      ...!harvard!huma1!fry
Cambridge, MA  02138