Unnecessary tar-compress-uuencodes

[Roy M. Silvernail]

tneff at bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:

> We have recently seen a spate of "source" postings in "uuencoded
> compressed TAR" form, instead of SHAR or other traditional plain text
> formats.  Now, possibly in response, we are seeing tools to manipulate
> this format posted.  This is a bad trend!  Let's not encourage it
> further.

I agree completely! I'm DOS-bound, but I was thinking of having a go at
porting the Anonymous Contact Service... unfortunately, the tarfile is
replete with unix filenames that will choke a DOS machine. I could mung
them manually in a shar.

>  * The format presupposes the existence of decoding tools which may
>    or may not be present in a given environment.  Non-UNIX users who
>    lack some of the automated extraction facilities we take for
>    granted -- but who can still hand separate a few simple SHAR's into
>    something useful -- are left out in the cold.

Tools I have... compress, PAX, uu*code... I also have a brain-dead OS to
deal with.

Thanks, Tom, for pointing out the problems with compressed tarfiles.

--
    Roy M. Silvernail   |   "It won't work... I have an  | Opinions found
    now available at:   |   exceptionally large mind."   | herein are mine,
 cybrspc!roy at cs.umn.edu | --Marvin, the paranoid android | but you can rent
(cyberspace... be here!)|                                | them.