C to Java Byte Code

In article <f4**************************@posting.google.com > su***************@yahoo.com (Al MacHonahey) writes:
....

That because, unlike Dik, other people have actually got a clue of
what and WHY some things are done on UseNet in the way they have been
for decades.

At least I have a clue *why* long ago people suggested to put a space
in front of the quotation symbol.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Jul 22 '05 #203

In article <P9%hd.3381$rZ1.522@trndny05> "Thomas G. Marshall" <tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> writes:
....

Is there a document somewhere which suggests how to form a standard usenet
quoted reply line? I cannot find it via google.
No, there is no standard about that.
My understanding was that the line to be quoted has a quote character
(usually >, sometimes | ) inserted at the /beginning/ of the line. Not just
before the first non whitespace character.

Originally the advice was not to use the square brackets, the curly
brackets, the vertical bar, the backslash, the underscore or the
backtick. The reason was that that could make quotations difficult
to read for people that used another incantation of ISO-646 than
ASCII.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Jul 22 '05 #204

In article <2u*************@uni-berlin.de> "Alfred Z. Newmane" <a.**************@eastcoastcz.com> writes:

Well, most don't allow you to put white space before your quote token.
You are right it is a /tradition/, it has always bene tradition to start
a line with a quote character, lest it be counted as local text.
Yup, that is what rn (the second newsreader ever) did do indeed, by default.
It came public in september 1984. (I do not know when I started to use it,
it must have been somewhere in 1985 or 1986, before that time I used the
first newsreader ever: readnews.) But with rn you could change the quoting
mechanism easily, put in your .rninit a line like
-F" > "
and you would get my quoting style. There was a pretty good reason to
change it and it was largely advised...
most readers that allow for od and unusual quoting styles are
usually features created by people who probably haven't spent a lot of
time in UseNet.
Eh? Larry Wall (of perl fame) not having spent a lot of time in Usenet
back in 1984? Where were *you* at that time? Actually you would be
right. At that time you could (and I did) read *all* articles posted on
the net without problems. Darn, all the news came here, nightly, through
a 1200 baud dial-up line from Amsterdam to the US (seismo), the first
newslink outside the US and Canada.
(Not always the case, but there are some poor readers out
there.)

Yes, there are (OE?) I still think rn is a good newsreader, and still do
use it. (Although it has since that time been updated quite a bit.)

Funny, in 12 days it will be 20 years that I posted my first article on
Usenet. <22*@turing.UUCP>.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Jul 22 '05 #205

In article <b2*************************@posting.google.com> jc*****@taeus.com (Jerry Coffin) writes:
....

Taking the Son of RFC 1036 as our guidance, we find only that lines
should be broken "as appropriate", and "Although styles vary widely,
for plain text it is usual to use no left margin..." That's
_extremely_ weak guidance at best -- even reading it as strongly as
possible, I can't see how it could be taken as much more than a
suggestion that Dik's style is mildly unusual.

I do not even think that. Plain text is something different from
quotation. The intention was to stop people who indented *all* text
they entered by preceding their text with either a space or a tab.
And, yes, that did occur.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Jul 22 '05 #206

In article <td8id.3820$rZ1.2733@trndny05> "Thomas G. Marshall" <tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> writes:

Dik T. Winter coughed up:

....

quoted text was needed, you should do:
:%s/^>/</
to change the quoting symbol. I am very sure that in earlier releases
it was advised that you should do:
:%s/^>/ >/

I saw this as well yesterday----Not sure what it means.

First I was wrong. Next, let me explain. When in 1984 rn came out to
replace readnews as a newsreader (they were, I think, second and first
respectively), the system would reject articles where the number of lines
of quoted text was larger than the number of lines of new text. This
according to a guideline that had come into force around that time
(readnews did not impose such limits). In some cases this was too
severe (but it helped quite a bit, as it suggested severely trimming the
quoted material). So around that time ways were thought to allow such
postings if you did put in enough effort. One way was to follow the
advice above: when you were put into 'vi' (as text editor) to create
your follow-up, first delete any stuff that was irrelevant, next change
the quotation character. (The command ":%s/^>/</" is a 'vi' command
to change any ">" that occurs at the start of a line to "<".) Doing
that would interfere with the check of new text against quoted text.
By the time that advice got to the guidelines (I think December 1987)
many people had already done various things with the quoting string,
as it was easy with rn to change the quoting string to anything you
fancied (about three years of frustration have gone into it). That
is why you see the proliferation of quoting styles, none of them have
ever been disallowed (but it was suggested that you did not use
specific symbols).

BTW, one of the big advantages of 'rn' over 'readnews' was the
introduction of 'kill-files', another one was that now you no longer
needed to see *all* header lines of an article.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Jul 22 '05 #207

J. J. Farrell

"Thomas G. Marshall" <tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> wrote in message news:<P9%hd.3381$rZ1.522@trndny05>...

J. J. Farrell coughed up:
"Alfred Z. Newmane" <a.**************@eastcoastcz.com> wrote in
message news:<2u*************@uni-berlin.de>...

The text after "Dik T. Winter coughed up:" is in fact Thomas's
quoting of Dik, which got horribly miss wrapped, mainly because of
the white space before his quote char. Why should everyone change
the way thing have bene done the past decade anda half because one
person decides to diverge from that accepted norm?
I'm puzzled. What has "the past decade and a half" got to do with
anything? Dik's been quoting in this way in his posts to Usenet
for well over 17 years. Why should he change because you choose
to use a broken program to read his postings?

Is there a document somewhere which suggests how to form a standard usenet
quoted reply line? I cannot find it via google.

None that I know of. This is largely a matter of tradition.
My understanding was that the line to be quoted has a quote character
(usually >, sometimes | ) inserted at the /beginning/ of the line. Not just
before the first non whitespace character.
That is the most common tradition. Dik's style is certainly
unusual, but has not previously been a problem. In any case,
Dik's long-standing unusual quoting style is effectively
"protected" by another long-standing (though less widely
known) tradition - that lines beginning with a space character
should not be reformatted. This makes it practicable to quote
posted C code, for example.
Is there someplace that defines (unofficially of course) the guideline for
it?

Not that I know of.

Jul 22 '05 #208

Dik T. Winter coughed up:

In article <td8id.3820$rZ1.2733@trndny05> "Thomas G. Marshall"
<tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> writes: > Dik
T. Winter coughed up: ...
> > quoted text was needed, you should do:
> > :%s/^>/</
> > to change the quoting symbol. I am very sure that in earlier releases > > it was advised that you should do: > > :%s/^>/ >/

>
> I saw this as well yesterday----Not sure what it means.

First I was wrong. Next, let me explain. When in 1984 rn came out to
replace readnews as a newsreader (they were, I think, second and first
respectively), the system would reject articles where the number of
lines
of quoted text was larger than the number of lines of new text. This
according to a guideline that had come into force around that time
(readnews did not impose such limits). In some cases this was too
severe (but it helped quite a bit, as it suggested severely trimming
the
quoted material). So around that time ways were thought to allow such
postings if you did put in enough effort. One way was to follow the
advice above: when you were put into 'vi' (as text editor) to create
your follow-up, first delete any stuff that was irrelevant, next
change
the quotation character. (The command ":%s/^>/</" is a 'vi' command
to change any ">" that occurs at the start of a line to "<".) Doing
that would interfere with the check of new text against quoted text.
By the time that advice got to the guidelines (I think December 1987)
many people had already done various things with the quoting string,
as it was easy with rn to change the quoting string to anything you
fancied (about three years of frustration have gone into it). That
is why you see the proliferation of quoting styles, none of them have
ever been disallowed (but it was suggested that you did not use
specific symbols).

BTW, one of the big advantages of 'rn' over 'readnews' was the
introduction of 'kill-files', another one was that now you no longer
needed to see *all* header lines of an article.

I recognized the vi / ex / sed-like command, and knew what it did per se. I
just didn't know what they were trying to accomplish. To defeat the more
quote than substance rule makes sense. (I hope we're way past ever needing
that silly rule again).

--
"It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire."
-Thufir Hawat, Mentat and Master of Assassins to House Atreides

Jul 22 '05 #209

J. J. Farrell coughed up:

"Thomas G. Marshall"
<tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> wrote in
message news:<P9%hd.3381$rZ1.522@trndny05>...
J. J. Farrell coughed up:
"Alfred Z. Newmane" <a.**************@eastcoastcz.com> wrote in
message news:<2u*************@uni-berlin.de>...

The text after "Dik T. Winter coughed up:" is in fact Thomas's
quoting of Dik, which got horribly miss wrapped, mainly because of
the white space before his quote char. Why should everyone change
the way thing have bene done the past decade anda half because one
person decides to diverge from that accepted norm?

I'm puzzled. What has "the past decade and a half" got to do with
anything? Dik's been quoting in this way in his posts to Usenet
for well over 17 years. Why should he change because you choose
to use a broken program to read his postings?
Is there a document somewhere which suggests how to form a standard
usenet quoted reply line? I cannot find it via google.

None that I know of. This is largely a matter of tradition.
My understanding was that the line to be quoted has a quote character
(usually >, sometimes | ) inserted at the /beginning/ of the line.
Not just before the first non whitespace character.

That is the most common tradition. Dik's style is certainly
unusual, but has not previously been a problem. In any case,
Dik's long-standing unusual quoting style is effectively
"protected" by another long-standing (though less widely
known) tradition - that lines beginning with a space character
should not be reformatted. This makes it practicable to quote
posted C code, for example.

Understood, but that doesn't "protect" his style policy for the simple
reason that he will be adding a space in front of lines that would only get
cutoff grotesquely if there weren't allowed to be formatted. Unless such
lines are never truncated either. {shrug}

Is there someplace that defines (unofficially of course) the
guideline for it?

Not that I know of.

--
"It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire."
-Thufir Hawat, Mentat and Master of Assassins to House Atreides

Jul 22 '05 #210

Programmer Dude

Thomas G. Marshall writes:

To defeat the more quote than substance rule makes sense.
(I hope we're way past ever needing that silly rule again).

In this age of nuubs who can't, or won't, edit, I think the
rule makes more sense than ever!

Jul 22 '05 #211

Antony Scriven

Thomas Marshall wrote:

Dik T. Winter coughed up:
[About the rejection of news articles with more quoted
text than original text.]

[Full, lengthy quotation snipped, including incorrect
line wrapping by OE.]

[...] To defeat the more quote than substance rule makes
sense. (I hope we're way past ever needing that silly
rule again).

For some, perhaps. Might others need encouragement?

Antony

Jul 22 '05 #212

Dik T. Winter wrote:

In article <f4**************************@posting.google.com >
su***************@yahoo.com (Al MacHonahey) writes: ...
> That because, unlike Dik, other people have actually got a clue of
> what and WHY some things are done on UseNet in the way they have

been > for decades.

At least I have a clue *why* long ago people suggested to put a space
in front of the quotation symbol.

I admit your method has it merrits for those without color coding, but
my /only/ problem with it is, that when you use padded quoting,
/everyone/ is forced to see it. However, if you posted in the "normal"
unpadded quoting fashion, then everyone could configure their readers to
do what ever with the quoting, like padding it ti /look/ like you have
it.

Question: Would it not make more sense to setup /your/ reader to post
with unpadded quotes /BUT/ add desired padding to existing quotings in
posts you /read/? That way people can /add/ what ever color coding and
such, and others can /add/ padding, or a combination of both.

It really seems to me that the problem is /posting/ with different forms
of quoting, where ther solution would be to just modify the /output/ of
a post being /read/.

So /please/ consider this :-)

Jul 22 '05 #213

Programmer Dude wrote:

Programmer Dude writes:
I'll be interested to see what Agent makes of this post
when it reads it (that is, will it color code the quotes).

No colors. Looks just like an "old fashioned" post in tin or
something. Oooooh,... 80s flashback!!

Looked bland to me too :-)

I made point of this in another post in the thread a minute ago, but
here a summary:

Why not have readers post in one format, ie "> " or so, that is,
unpadded quotings? I think readers should just modify the /OUTPUT/,
meaning the post being read, to add coloring, padding, or both, whatever
the user wants to see the output.

Seems like this is a lot more logical, and would be a viable solution.

Jul 22 '05 #214

Floyd L. Davidson wrote:

jo*@invalid.address wrote:
Måns Rullgård <mr*@inprovide.com> writes:
Programmer Dude <Ch***@Sonnack.com> writes:

Programmer Dude writes:

> I'll be interested to see what Agent makes of this post when it
> reads it (that is, will it color code the quotes).

No colors. Looks just like an "old fashioned" post in tin or
something. Oooooh,... 80s flashback!!

FWIW, gnus colored it properly.

Gnus also wraps it correctly when reformatting.

I did find a "bug" in Gnus though... with the
message-yank-prefix and message-yank-cited-prefix variables set
to start with whitespace, invoking ispell on the message buffer
checks the spelling of the quoted text as well as the message
text (which it normally does not). I guess ispell.el isn't as
smart as message.el.

Maybe Alfred Z. Newmane can tell us how OE's spell check
functionality works in those circumstances? ;-)

Well, my OE is set not to check the quote blocks for spelling, so when I
hit reply, everything Programmer Dude said in post became one big quote
block. BUT, if I added outter padding like Programmer Dude did, it would
try to check it. The color coding is non existant when reading his post,
and no point in checking the speling of a post being read :-)

Jul 22 '05 #215

Floyd L. Davidson wrote:

"Alfred Z. Newmane" <a.**************@eastcoastcz.com> wrote:
<Programmer Dude wrote:
>> That newsreaders have come to do something fancy with that
>> tradition means *nothing*. EVERY SINGLE newsreader I know
>> allows you to configure your quote style. That should tell
>> you something.

>
Well, most don't allow you to put white space before your
quote token.

You continue to advocate the use of *broken* newsreaders as a
default standard for Usenet... (The /reasonable/ solution is to
use a better newsreader.)

Just for grins (and groans), I reconfigured Gnus just to post
this one article. You'll note that it allows the quote prefix
to begin with whitespace, /and/ that is also allows two
different quote prefixes. In this example the text *quoted*
*from* the previous article is prefixed by " AZN>", and text
*quoted* *in* the previous article is prefixed by " > ".

You just demonstrated a point for my latest arguemnt. Why subject
/everyone/ to one form or the other? Why not have one sane way of
/posting/, jsut as unpadded quoting, and /configure/ your reader to show
the /output/ how /you want/? Instead of forcing a message to be read how
a single /user/ wants it.

In other words, formatting should be done on a /local/ scale, not a
/glabal/ one. Now what is so wrong with that?

Jul 22 '05 #216

Floyd L. Davidson wrote:

"Thomas G. Marshall"
<tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> wrote:
Dik T. Winter coughed up:
which). It is stated that when you get the message 'more quoted
text than new text' with a rejection by the system you should first
try to reduce the amount of quoted text, en if you still was sure
that all the
quoted text was needed, you should do:
:%s/^>/</
to change the quoting symbol. I am very sure that in earlier
releases it was advised that you should do:
:%s/^>/ >/

I saw this as well yesterday----Not sure what it means.

Some newsreaders, and some news servers, will refuse to post a
message that contains more quoted text than non-quoted text.
The mechanism used is extremely simple, and merely counts lines
that begin with the most commonly used quote prefix characters.

The method for overriding the count is to use a quote prefix
that begins with a space or any other character that is rarely
used (and thus does not trigger the mechanism). The
newsreader/server will then allow the message to be posted.

Of course it should be realized that when newsreaders and
servers began implementing that mechanism it caused a
significant number of people to permanently override it by
making their default quote prefix something that would not be
counted. That resulted in the now common practice of using a
variety of characters other than '>'. (Other methods to
override it are even worse...)

Well that /deos/ make sense, hadn't ever really thought about that,
thanks for posting that.

Jul 22 '05 #217

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

Dik T. Winter coughed up:
In article <td8id.3820$rZ1.2733@trndny05> "Thomas G. Marshall"
<tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> writes: > Dik
T. Winter coughed up: ...
> > quoted text was needed, you should do:
> > :%s/^>/</
> > to change the quoting symbol. I am very sure that in earlier

releases > > it was advised that you should do:
> > :%s/^>/ >/
>
> I saw this as well yesterday----Not sure what it means.

First I was wrong. Next, let me explain. When in 1984 rn came out
to replace readnews as a newsreader (they were, I think, second and
first respectively), the system would reject articles where the
number of lines
of quoted text was larger than the number of lines of new text. This
according to a guideline that had come into force around that time
(readnews did not impose such limits). In some cases this was too
severe (but it helped quite a bit, as it suggested severely trimming
the
quoted material). So around that time ways were thought to allow
such postings if you did put in enough effort. One way was to
follow the advice above: when you were put into 'vi' (as text
editor) to create your follow-up, first delete any stuff that was
irrelevant, next change
the quotation character. (The command ":%s/^>/</" is a 'vi' command
to change any ">" that occurs at the start of a line to "<".) Doing
that would interfere with the check of new text against quoted text.
By the time that advice got to the guidelines (I think December 1987)
many people had already done various things with the quoting string,
as it was easy with rn to change the quoting string to anything you
fancied (about three years of frustration have gone into it). That
is why you see the proliferation of quoting styles, none of them have
ever been disallowed (but it was suggested that you did not use
specific symbols).

BTW, one of the big advantages of 'rn' over 'readnews' was the
introduction of 'kill-files', another one was that now you no longer
needed to see *all* header lines of an article.

I recognized the vi / ex / sed-like command, and knew what it did per
se. I just didn't know what they were trying to accomplish. To
defeat the more quote than substance rule makes sense. (I hope we're
way past ever needing that silly rule again).

I hope so. I haven't seen such a rule imposed on any server in the past
few years now, and I don't know of any newer (version) readers that
check it either. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

That said, if I'm right, I'm guessing you are using that form of quoting
from habit? (At least from part?)

Jul 22 '05 #218

Programmer Dude wrote:

Thomas G. Marshall writes:
To defeat the more quote than substance rule makes sense.
(I hope we're way past ever needing that silly rule again).

In this age of nuubs who can't, or won't, edit, I think the
rule makes more sense than ever!

Agreed. And now that I look at my post in parallel to this one, I'm
guilty of doing just that :-) I tihnk sometimes it done out of
preservation of that part of the thread. Sometimes one post might not
make it and if your reply does, the context is still preserved. I think
you just need to know when and when not to to it I suppose. Though I
think this point is really up for grabs, being as there are so many
opinions on it; in the eye of the beholder, as it were.

Jul 22 '05 #219

Måns Rullgård

"Alfred Z. Newmane" <a.**************@eastcoastcz.com> writes:

I recognized the vi / ex / sed-like command, and knew what it did per
se. I just didn't know what they were trying to accomplish. To
defeat the more quote than substance rule makes sense. (I hope we're
way past ever needing that silly rule again).

I hope so. I haven't seen such a rule imposed on any server in the past
few years now, and I don't know of any newer (version) readers that
check it either. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

I've had posts rejected a few of times over the past few years
using Gnus. At least some were triggered when I accidentally hit the
send button before typing very much.

--
Måns Rullgård
mr*@inprovide.com

Jul 22 '05 #220

Floyd L. Davidson

"Alfred Z. Newmane" <a.**************@eastcoastcz.com> wrote:

Floyd L. Davidson wrote:

Just for grins (and groans), I reconfigured Gnus just to post
this one article. You'll note that it allows the quote prefix
to begin with whitespace, /and/ that is also allows two
different quote prefixes. In this example the text *quoted*
*from* the previous article is prefixed by " AZN>", and text
*quoted* *in* the previous article is prefixed by " > ".
You just demonstrated a point for my latest arguemnt. Why subject

It demonstrated a number of things, but none of them support
what you've been saying.
/everyone/ to one form or the other? Why not have one sane way of
/posting/, jsut as unpadded quoting, and /configure/ your reader to show
the /output/ how /you want/? Instead of forcing a message to be read how
a single /user/ wants it.
That is probably a significantly larger subject that you
imagine.

First, just *who* is going to decide which is the /one/ /true/
/way/? Somebody in Redmond WN that knows nothing about Usenet?
Or should we find someone with technical skills who has been
actively using Usenet for 90% of its life... For example Dik
T. Winters, who clearly does understand it rather well!
(Actually, Dik has probably had more influence on what is
appropriate formatting for Usenet that you might imagine.
Virtually everyone who provided useful technical commentary and
examples in the early and mid-1980's influenced design changes
and RFC's. Usenet was that small then, and Dik definitely was
influential.)

There are divergent philosophies on just where a message should
be formatted, and they cannot be intermixed. There are those
who want the reader/display software to format text according to
the available viewing resources. That philosophy has been the
basis for Apple and Microsoft GUI systems since day one. But it
is opposite the basic philosophy that others use (and in
particular that Usenet is based on), where the *sender* sets the
format. (E.g., line lengths, whitespace, blank lines, and a
basic set of attributes such as bold, italic, and underline.)

Clearly the two views do not mesh, but also just as clearly
there *are* valid uses and value for both, even to some degree
on Usenet. For example, color-coding different quote levels or
using different fonts might be considered a reader-side format
decision. In fact though, the measure of value in any such
feature (for Usenet) is how well it works *without* changing the
sender's formatting decisions.

On the other hand, attempts at introducing readers-side
formatting have caused some of the worst examples of trash on
Usenet. Look at the concept of sending one long line and
letting the reader format paragraphs for line length! That is
an abomination on Usenet, and news software that sends a message
that way are simply broken. There are many other examples too,
though some of them are subtle. Look at the odd ways that some
software treats the end of paragraphs, and for example removes
blank lines between them. *That* is exactly the reason such
concepts should be avoided.
In other words, formatting should be done on a /local/ scale, not a
/glabal/ one. Now what is so wrong with that?

Usenet has *never* followed that philosophy, and it grew from
systems that specifically rejected that philosophy. One reason
is because the people who designed it were techie types who were
and are very picky about how their messages are formatted! Look
at what Dik T. Winters has stated his reasons for formatting the
way he does! *He* wants to decide what his message looks like
when a reader views it. It *makes a difference*, and that is
something he, as the author, wants to control as much as
possible.

Usenet, at least through the first 10-15 years, was explicitly
designed to function the way Dik is manipulating it. I've been
reading his posts (now days with Gnus, but before that with trn,
an before that with rn) for more than 15 years and never once
even noticed that he was indenting the quoted text by one space!
Why? Because it is just *natural*. His formatting style, quite
by intent, makes his posts more readable!

(Or, it did until people came along and misconfigured their
broken software to reformat paragraphs that should not be
reformatted. But really... anyone who is that unaware of the
difference is *not* worth targeting the posted formatting for
anyway! So nothing is lost if they don't see a proper message.)

--
FloydL. Davidson <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) fl***@barrow.com

Jul 22 '05 #221

Floyd L. Davidson

Måns Rullgård <mr*@inprovide.com> wrote:

I've had posts rejected a few of times over the past few years
using Gnus. At least some were triggered when I accidentally hit the
send button before typing very much.

I can't find anything in the Gnus docs that indicates so, but
it's easy to miss something like that in a quick scan.

Some servers do reject such articles though, and several
moderated newsgroups and mailing lists will reject such articles
out of hand.

--
FloydL. Davidson <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) fl***@barrow.com

Jul 22 '05 #222

Måns Rullgård

fl***@barrow.com (Floyd L. Davidson) writes:

Måns Rullgård <mr*@inprovide.com> wrote:

I've had posts rejected a few of times over the past few years
using Gnus. At least some were triggered when I accidentally hit the
send button before typing very much.

I can't find anything in the Gnus docs that indicates so, but
it's easy to miss something like that in a quick scan.

Some servers do reject such articles though, and several
moderated newsgroups and mailing lists will reject such articles
out of hand.

To clarify, the server rejected the message, and Gnus told me so.

--
Måns Rullgård
mr*@inprovide.com

Jul 22 '05 #223

Alfred Z. Newmane coughed up:

Dik T. Winter wrote:
In article <f4**************************@posting.google.com >
su***************@yahoo.com (Al MacHonahey) writes: ...
> That because, unlike Dik, other people have actually got a clue of
> what and WHY some things are done on UseNet in the way they have

been > for decades.

At least I have a clue *why* long ago people suggested to put a space
in front of the quotation symbol.

I admit your method has it merrits for those without color coding, but
my /only/ problem with it is, that when you use padded quoting,
/everyone/ is forced to see it. However, if you posted in the "normal"
unpadded quoting fashion, then everyone could configure their readers
to do what ever with the quoting, like padding it ti /look/ like you
have it.

Question: Would it not make more sense to setup /your/ reader to post
with unpadded quotes /BUT/ add desired padding to existing quotings in
posts you /read/? That way people can /add/ what ever color coding and
such, and others can /add/ padding, or a combination of both.

It really seems to me that the problem is /posting/ with different
forms of quoting, where ther solution would be to just modify the
/output/ of a post being /read/.

So /please/ consider this :-)

I'd like to add further that (right or wrong) I have no idea why Dik would
want to make it tough for so many people to respond coherently to him in the
first place. And to see his quotes in color.

Forget whether or not it's ideal. It's the /way it is/: OE + OE QuoteFix is
very common, and all those people are going to have a problem replying, or
worse, they won't even bother trying.

--
Whyowhydidn'tsunmakejavarequireanuppercaseletterto startclassnames....

Jul 22 '05 #224

In article <2u*************@uni-berlin.de> "Alfred Z. Newmane" <a.**************@eastcoastcz.com> writes:

Dik T. Winter wrote:
In article <f4**************************@posting.google.com >
su***************@yahoo.com (Al MacHonahey) writes: ...
> That because, unlike Dik, other people have actually got a clue of
> what and WHY some things are done on UseNet in the way they have been > for decades.

At least I have a clue *why* long ago people suggested to put a space
in front of the quotation symbol.

I admit your method has it merrits for those without color coding, but
my /only/ problem with it is, that when you use padded quoting,
/everyone/ is forced to see it. However, if you posted in the "normal"
unpadded quoting fashion, then everyone could configure their readers to
do what ever with the quoting, like padding it ti /look/ like you have
it.

Have you any idea what the clue *is* that I have?
Question: Would it not make more sense to setup /your/ reader to post
with unpadded quotes /BUT/ add desired padding to existing quotings in
posts you /read/? That way people can /add/ what ever color coding and
such, and others can /add/ padding, or a combination of both.

No, you have no idea about the clue; obviously...
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Jul 22 '05 #225

In article <2u*************@uni-berlin.de> "Alfred Z. Newmane" <a.**************@eastcoastcz.com> writes:

Why not have readers post in one format, ie "> " or so, that is,
unpadded quotings? I think readers should just modify the /OUTPUT/,
meaning the post being read, to add coloring, padding, or both, whatever
the user wants to see the output.

Hrm. My newsreader is not configurable in that way.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Jul 22 '05 #226

In article <2u*************@uni-berlin.de> "Alfred Z. Newmane" <a.**************@eastcoastcz.com> writes:
....

That said, if I'm right, I'm guessing you are using that form of quoting
from habit? (At least from part?)

That is one of the reasons. The other is that my newsreader will refuse
to post, etc...
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Jul 22 '05 #227

In article <Enyid.719$Zb3.491@trndny07> "Thomas G. Marshall" <tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> writes:
....

I'd like to add further that (right or wrong) I have no idea why Dik would
want to make it tough for so many people to respond coherently to him in the
first place. And to see his quotes in color.

As I wrote before, before this thread I have only had three complaints in
all the 17 years that I am using the way I quote. Only this thread is
quite vehement about it, and in that thread only three people. I also
see many replies to articles I write in various newsgroups. I am reading
in black on white, and for me a quote stands out better when it is
well-indented. (And, yes, you will not find it in the header, the
newsreader I am using is good old rn, which satisfies my needs very
well.)

But whatever, if you do not want to see it, put in your killfile
instructions to avoid all articles by me or all articles where I
am quoted. A little bit decent newsreader (like rn in 1984) could
do that easily enough.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Jul 22 '05 #228

joe

"Thomas G. Marshall" <tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> writes:

I'd like to add further that (right or wrong) I have no idea why Dik
would want to make it tough for so many people to respond coherently
to him in the first place. And to see his quotes in color.

Forget whether or not it's ideal. It's the /way it is/: OE + OE
QuoteFix is very common, and all those people are going to have a
problem replying, or worse, they won't even bother trying.

I suspect that the percentage of people who use OE and read these
newsgroups will be a relatively small proportion of all OE users. I'd
guess that most people who read these groups use more functional
newsreaders.

Just my two cent's worth.

Joe
--
Nothing cures like time and love
- Laura Nyro

Jul 22 '05 #229

G. S. Hayes

jc*****@taeus.com (Jerry Coffin) wrote in message news:<b2*************************@posting.google.c om>...

"Thomas G. Marshall" <tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> wrote in message news:<Bltgd.6$304.0@trndny06>...
There is a *prevailing* notion that:

If it ain't standard C, it ain't C
This is more than a mere notion: it's a tautology, since C is defined
by the standard.

[SNIP] If it ain't C, it ain't topical in comp.lang.c, and if it ain't C++ it
ain't topical in comp.lang.c++. Since these languages are defined by
standards, "C" and "standard C" are synonymous. While I'm not a
regular participant in comp.unix.programming, I'd imagine it's run
along more or less similar lines.

In my experience, I would say it's not. At least not in the sense of
"if it ain't standard, it ain't Unix". Certainly there are
discussions about how to do things in platform-specific manners on
SysV, BSD, Linux, and other platforms that are more or less "Unixish",
but it's not limited to any of:

a) Machines that are trademark Unix
b) Machines that are derived from the Unix source code
c) Machines that comply strictly with POSIX (or the Single Unix
Specification, or any other standard) (there are other POSIX-related
newsgroups).

Indeed, while you can make an argument for any of those
definitions--and probably most correctly for a), at least
legally--casual and newsgroup usage often treats anything that
"behaves a lot like Unix" as on-topic. That's in contrast to
comp.lang.c, where discussion of GNU C or something else that is "a
lot like C" is considered off-topic.

Both of the following are common answers on c.u.p:

"That's not possible in POSIX, but on BSD try foo(), on SVR4 try bar()
and on Linux try baz()"
"that can't be done on most Unix systems, but Coolix 3.0 has the qux()
call and Portix has wobble()"

Indeed, a huge number of questions which get answers like this are not
considered off-topic.

It's a fuzzy line. Ask how to get information about what processes
are running, and you'll probably be considered on-topic even though
there are a lot of platform-specific details involved. Ask about how
to use the TV grabber interface on your Linux box or the OpenBSD
firewalling tables and you're likely to be redirected to a
platform-specific group.

But c.u.p, for better or worse, is more lenient than comp.lang.c,
where answering with "that's not possible in standard C, but on
Windows you can do x, on Macs you can do Y, and on Unix you can do z"
is not the norm for things that aren't in the standard--and if an
answer like that IS given, it's usually either accompanied by "this is
really off-topic, you should ask on a system-specific group" or
followed up by someone saying "you shouldn't have answered that since
people here can't vet your answers and correct your mistakes". Or
both.

Jul 22 '05 #230

Alfred Z. Newmane coughed up:

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:
Dik T. Winter coughed up:
In article <td8id.3820$rZ1.2733@trndny05> "Thomas G. Marshall"
<tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> writes: >
Dik T. Winter coughed up: ...
> > quoted text was needed, you should do:
> > :%s/^>/</
> > to change the quoting symbol. I am very sure that in earlier
releases > > it was advised that you should do:
> > :%s/^>/ >/
>
> I saw this as well yesterday----Not sure what it means.

First I was wrong. Next, let me explain. When in 1984 rn came out
to replace readnews as a newsreader (they were, I think, second and
first respectively), the system would reject articles where the
number of lines
of quoted text was larger than the number of lines of new text.
This according to a guideline that had come into force around that
time (readnews did not impose such limits). In some cases this was
too severe (but it helped quite a bit, as it suggested severely
trimming the
quoted material). So around that time ways were thought to allow
such postings if you did put in enough effort. One way was to
follow the advice above: when you were put into 'vi' (as text
editor) to create your follow-up, first delete any stuff that was
irrelevant, next change
the quotation character. (The command ":%s/^>/</" is a 'vi' command
to change any ">" that occurs at the start of a line to "<".) Doing
that would interfere with the check of new text against quoted text.
By the time that advice got to the guidelines (I think December
1987) many people had already done various things with the quoting
string, as it was easy with rn to change the quoting string to
anything you fancied (about three years of frustration have gone
into it). That is why you see the proliferation of quoting styles,
none of them have ever been disallowed (but it was suggested that
you did not use specific symbols).

BTW, one of the big advantages of 'rn' over 'readnews' was the
introduction of 'kill-files', another one was that now you no longer
needed to see *all* header lines of an article.

I recognized the vi / ex / sed-like command, and knew what it did per
se. I just didn't know what they were trying to accomplish. To
defeat the more quote than substance rule makes sense. (I hope we're
way past ever needing that silly rule again).

I hope so. I haven't seen such a rule imposed on any server in the
past few years now, and I don't know of any newer (version) readers
that check it either. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

That said, if I'm right, I'm guessing you are using that form of
quoting from habit? (At least from part?)

I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone reply heatedly

"I see you've conveniently snipped away what
I said about [...]"

I think that these days, the server storage and internet bandwidth issues
are such that fully quoted everything all the time isn't going to kill
anyone. {author ducks inevitable flame}

And, ironically, I've just been told this, in
microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlooke xpress:

<quote from PA Bear>
TGM: If you want people to follow this thread and offer advice,
include all
of Previous Message in all of your replies, please.
</quote>

{chuckle}.

Jul 22 '05 #231

Måns Rullgård

"Thomas G. Marshall" <tg****************@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail. com> writes:

I think that these days, the server storage and internet bandwidth issues
are such that fully quoted everything all the time isn't going to kill
anyone. {author ducks inevitable flame}
Removing the irrelevant bits saves the reader the time to scan through
the entire message looking for a reply.
And, ironically, I've just been told this, in
microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlooke xpress:

<quote from PA Bear>
TGM: If you want people to follow this thread and offer advice,
include all
of Previous Message in all of your replies, please.
</quote>

If you ask him, he probably advocates top-posting as well. Be careful
with where you take your advice.

--
Måns Rullgård
mr*@inprovide.com

Jul 22 '05 #232

Willem

Thomas wrote:
) I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone reply heatedly
)
) "I see you've conveniently snipped away what
) I said about [...]"
)
) I think that these days, the server storage and internet bandwidth issues
) are such that fully quoted everything all the time isn't going to kill
) anyone. {author ducks inevitable flame}

Irrelevant.

Not snipping it would simply change the above statement to:

"I see you've conveniebtly declined to answer what
I said about [...]"

(Unless whoever sais that is too stupid to notice you didn't answer all of
his statements, but can see that you snip away some statements that you
know you don't respond to, in which case snipping it is actually a service
to said stupid person.)
SaSW, Willem
--
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any of the statements
made in the above text. For all I know I might be
drugged or something..
No I'm not paranoid. You all think I'm paranoid, don't you !
#EOT

Jul 22 '05 #233

Willem coughed up:

Thomas wrote:
) I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone reply heatedly
)
) "I see you've conveniently snipped away what
) I said about [...]"
)
) I think that these days, the server storage and internet bandwidth
issues ) are such that fully quoted everything all the time isn't
going to kill ) anyone. {author ducks inevitable flame}

Irrelevant.

Not snipping it would simply change the above statement to:

"I see you've conveniebtly declined to answer what
I said about [...]"

Sure, that's probably right. I was regarding the larger problem of people
not understanding the full statement of the prior person before replying.
To me, biasing everything over over-snippage is fair.

Note that I /do/ snip. Er, actually, I "rip", "twack", "stomp", etc...
....[rip]...
--
Iamamanofconstantsorrow,I'veseentroubleallmydays.I bidfarewelltoold
Kentucky,TheplacewhereIwasbornandraised.Forsixlong yearsI'vebeenin
trouble,NopleasureshereonearthIfound.Forinthisworl dI'mboundtoramble,
Ihavenofriendstohelpmenow....Maybeyourfriendsthink I'mjustastrangerMyface,
you'llneverseenomore.Butthereisonepromisethatisgiv enI'llmeetyouonGod's
goldenshore.

Jul 22 '05 #234

Måns Rullgård coughed up:

....[rip]...

Removing the irrelevant bits saves the reader the time to scan through
the entire message looking for a reply.

You're right.

And, ironically, I've just been told this, in
microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlooke xpress:

<quote from PA Bear>
TGM: If you want people to follow this thread and offer
advice, include all
of Previous Message in all of your replies, please.
</quote>

If you ask him, he probably advocates top-posting as well. Be careful
with where you take your advice.

Fair enough. I suspect, upon reflection, that he was specifically
advocating this because of the problem at hand. But you're right.

--
Iamamanofconstantsorrow,I'veseentroubleallmydays.I bidfarewelltoold
Kentucky,TheplacewhereIwasbornandraised.Forsixlong yearsI'vebeenin
trouble,NopleasureshereonearthIfound.Forinthisworl dI'mboundtoramble,
Ihavenofriendstohelpmenow....Maybeyourfriendsthink I'mjustastrangerMyface,
you'llneverseenomore.Butthereisonepromisethatisgiv enI'llmeetyouonGod's
goldenshore.

Jul 22 '05 #235