Flame: Problem with zoo: restoring times

[Fritz Whittington]

In article <5798 at bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi at bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>In article <1989Feb20.183931.13918 at gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> woods at gpu.utcs.UUCP
>(Greg Woods) writes:
>   ...store file times in zoo archives as GMT...This time conversion
>   constant would be supplied by the person who installs zoo on a given
>   system.  [could use an environment variable or a config file etc.]
>
>There are two problems with this.  First, it forces the end user to
>go through an installation step.
>
>Second, it forces the code inside zoo to know about daylight savings
>algorithms.  
 . . .
>Portable software ought to work correctly even if information about
>timezone is not available.
>-- 
>Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi
Software, portable or not, should be *able* to work "correctly" when
given the proper inputs (or used in the proper manner).  If I zoo files
on a Unix system in Texas and un-zoo them on an MS-DOS machine in
California, I would expect the software to at least be capable of
restoring the correct creation times *if* I provide the time conversion
information.  (If I'm too ignorant to supply it by setting the proper
environment variable, then it's *my* fault; if I do supply it and the
software ignores it, the software is at fault.)
The stuff about daylight time seems strange to me; MS-DOS users
usually change their system clock to match the clock on the wall (if
they care about time at all).  Seems pretty trivial to change the
'offset from GMT' environment variable at the same time.    
-------end of purported useful information--------
The rest of this followup is dedicated to the stupidity of the current
version of inews.  It provides an excellent example of software that
does not work "correctly" by refusing to even ask the news poster if he
really is aware that he hasn't put in enough extra text to satisfy the
ludicrous requirement that the amount of follow-up text be more than the
amount of quoted text.  The rumor that this requirement was added to the
software specification for inews by a consortium of long-distance
providers in order to increase their billings to Usenet machines is
appealing, but probably untrue;  I don't believe there *is* a software
specification document for inews!
---- 
Fritz Whittington                               Texas Instruments, Incorporated
I don't even claim these opinions myself!       MS 3105
UUCP: killer!ernest!friday!fritz                8505 Forest Lane
AT&T: (214)480-6302                             Dallas, Texas  75243