Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CORY.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Sources in text mode please
Message-ID: <8805110255.AA21249@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 11 May 88 02:55:58 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 31

>Pat, if my mail message didn't get through to you please let me 
>reiterate. My feeling is that the source news groups are for sources
>and zoo archives are binaries period. Some P, CP (Point, Counter Point)
>
>There are more, but this is not meant to be a flame, just a _vigorous_ request
>that the sources groups remain 'human readable' thank you.

	We should discuss this, actually.  This is my opinion:

	(1) The outer layer of source/binaries postings should ALWAYS BE
	    A SHAR.  Period.  What the SHAR contains can be anything...
	    uuencoded files, zoo + uuencoded files, arc + uuencoded files,
	    text files, whatever, BUT MAKE THAT OUTER LAYER A SHAR!

	Reason#1:  most unshar programs are intelligent ... so much so that
	they ignore garbage at the beginning (the header) and end 
	(the signature).  Thus, there is no need to VI the file before 
	decoding ... just run it through unshar.

	Reason#2:  if uuencoded files are shar'd, there are no blank lines
	after you unshar, and you can simply cat the segments together and
	pipe it through uudecode.  simple.

	Reason#3:  It becomes obvious if a posting is truncated.

	This is a precursor to discussing the possible changeover from
	moderated to unmoderated.  The lag time is simply too great as
	it is (sorry moderators... classes or not, 2 months is ridiculous)
	I think we can do it... if everybody agrees on a standard (maybe
	the one I suggested above?).

					-Matt