WRONG! ??

Sue Peru Sr. root at uwspan.UUCP
Wed May 25 07:11:07 AEST 1988


+---- Sanford 'Sandy' Zelkovitz writes in <208 at turnkey.TCC.COM> ----
| The following are my replys to WRONGLY stated comments:
| +-- I had written --
| | The messages are in a non-standard format with all messages stuffed into
| | one huge file.  The messages are limited to a compile time maximum length.
| 
| Firstly, what is a standard message????

	RFC-822

| | | 16) Message of the day (pre-selected)
| | This is a hardcoded filename (the date) whose contents get printed out.
| 
| This happens to be a VERY efficient way of doing it!
| BTW, since you don't like the file name as being made up of the date, 

I never said I didn't like it, I was just shedding more light on the subject.
In the Unix world, a message of the day is usually a single file which is
printed out every day.  Your way is different, and I thought it would be
good to point that out.  I rather liked the idea.

| | All the file transfer protocols are external programs - you must have them
| | on your system to be able to use them.
| 
| The file protocols are available on my system.

Again, the point was that the XBBS program didn't include these as built in
routines, but rather as external (and thus customizable) programs.

| | 20) List the contents of an archive file ( .arc, .tar, or .tar.Z )
| | This requires that you have a working copy of ARC on your system...

Some sites have problems getting a completely compatable ARC running - be it
for reasons of word length, byte ordering, etc.  Just another thing I wished
to point out.  Sure, if everyone was using Xenix 80286 it wouldn't matter.
But we aren't.

| | 21) File directory summary
| | 22) List all, new, or matched files
| | Simply a "ls -l directory > file ; cat file > modemport ; rm file" sequence
| The file summary option lists the file statistics within the directory.
| ( if that is an ls -l, I'll eat my hat! )

Sorry.  I paraphrased the code for a Raw file listing instead of the File
listing.  I assumed that he was refering to the Raw listing....

| | Before you rush out and download it, be warned:
| |	1) The code is *VERY* unstructured.
| It's funny, you are the ONLY one that has said that the code is unstructured!

It may be that I have higher standards than you do Sandy.

| |	3) The message base, file handling, and bulletins (motd and others)
| |	   use non-standard layouts and fixed length record formats.
| They are MY format; therefore they are standard for xbbs!

But they are not ASCII text files, nor are they Fido/Opus message files, nor
are they RFC-822 files.  No Judgement, just an observation.

| |	4) The code consists of one HUGE source file (107K) and about a
| |	   dozen small (< 5K) additions.
| 
| Well, here goes proof of another bunch of garbage!
| file           size                   file             size
| bbsc1.c        67158                  bbsc2.c          38111

In the version I have, these are ONE big file (67158 + 38111 = 105269)

| bbscadds.c      3734                  bbscarea.c        3591
| bbscbult.c      5029                  bbsconf.c         5431
| bbscfile.c     15675                  bbscio.c          2298
| bbsclist.c      3012                  bbscclock.c       2259
| bbscmisc.c      1410                  bbscmsga.c        7555
| bbscport.c      7701                  bbscqust.c        3219
| bbsczip.c       4101

And here (except for bbscfile.c) are a dozen files, each about 5K in size)

Proof?  yup.

| | If you are interested in doing a lot of work, his code isn't too bad
| | a starting place, but instead of hawking its new features he should
| | be cleaning up what he has.  This code is definitely not "comp.sources.unix"
| | quality - it just squeaks by as being something that comp.sources.misc would
| | appreciate.  (Sorry Brandon... :-)
| 
| My lawyer will be VERY interested in the above comments along with previous
| comments!

Lawyer?  Whoa!  These *are* opinions, remember?  C.S.U standards mean a
polished, packaged & documented program.  C.S.M only requires a working
program.  Since a 107K source file doesn't compile on V/AT (and by your
comments in the code it doesn't work under some versions of Xenix) I
said "squeaks".

| MY COMMENTS
| I have NO idea why you would make my code sound so bad on the net.

If the shoe fits...  If for nothing else, a 100K source file is a nightmare!

| I am sure you will NOT hear the end of this.
| Sanford 'Sandy' Zelkovitz

This, in conjunction with the Lawyer threat above, and Your reactions when I
tried to talk to you on the phone make me sure that I won't.  Too Bad.  If
you spent a fraction of this effort *listening* to others rather than Reacting
to perceived put-downs, XBBS would be a much better program.

I liked the program, I was willing to put a *lot* of effort into it.  I even
had a few ideas for making it usable on many other systems.  I just wanted
to let others who were interested in it to know "what it was like under the
hood", so to speak.  If you take this as a personal attack, I'm sorry.  It
wasn't meant as one.

    -John

-- 
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