C News patch dating
Chip Salzenberg
chip at tct.uucp
Sat Sep 22 02:13:15 AEST 1990
It is apparent that some people who dislike the C News patch scheme
have become abusive to Geoff and Henry. Such abuse is stupid and
unwarranted, and I will have no truck with it.
Unfortunately, however, the abusers have apparently gotten Henry's
goat. To wit:
According to henry at zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer):
>People who moan that they can't tell which old patches they
>need don't seem to ever have *looked* at one of our patches.
This statement is, to be blunt, hogwash. I have seen every single
patch to C News, and I've applied them all. I remain unconvinced that
the C News patch system is viable as a long-term solution. (And I do
not consider my complaints to be mere "moaning.")
As the list of previous patches gets longer and longer, I grow more
and more uncomfortable. How easy it might be to miss a patch. How
difficult it might be to clean up afterwards, if I make that mistake.
>The balance is perhaps slightly against dating, but hardly strong
>enough to justify the vehement outpourings on the subject and the
>tendency to blame it for all C News's ills.
I don't think anyone can reasonably blame patch dating for C News'
other problems -- which, I might add, have been few. Nevertheless,
many reasonable people believe that patch dating is itself one of the
problems of C News.
Usenet maintenance is a job that many people do part-time, and often
the time they use is their own. Keeping track of an ever-growing list
of patch dates is just one more complication. In my opinion, anything
that further complicates a Usenet administrator's job is a Bad Thing.
--
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT <chip at tct.uucp>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip>
More information about the Comp.sources.bugs
mailing list