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