Re: Source code in programming faq

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• Next message: David A. Roth: "Re: Source code in programming faq"
• Previous message: Vic Metcalfe: "Source code in programming faq"

> The problem is that the source is provided in tarred zipped uuencoded
> format, and as such is seen as a binary posting. I do this because it is
> smaller than un-compressed text, and because it is easier to extract all
> the files, with correct file names and paths so that readers can compile
> and mess around with the examples. I understand many sites will
> automatically dispose of binary postings, and I seem to remember binary
> postings being not acceptable faq material.

Large binaries (especially executables and images) are rightfully
frowned upon by readers and by site administrators when posted into
groups not explicitly designated for binaries. However, I don't think
there are very many (if in fact *any*) sites which go to the extreme
of scanning incoming news article contents and discarding the ones
which look like they might have binaries encoded for transmission.
Such filters would almost certainly result in a lot of false positives
given the proclivities of some MIME mail/news software of encoding
text that could just as well be sent unencoded since the text happens
to be entirely ASCII.

What you want to do *is* reasonable, in my opinion, and the *.answers
submission guidelines do not outlaw what you wish to do. If you are
running into size restrictions with your local news posting software,
you are welcome to make use of faq-server@rtfm.mit.edu, which will
work fine provided that your local email software isn't subject to the
same size limits. Splitting up your posting into multiple sections is
certainly another possibility to get around the 64KB limitation, but
note that whether you want to do this or not is orthogonal to whether
you should provide the source code examples in shell archive (".shar")
format or a "tarred zipped uuencoded" format. Generally, your life
will be a little simpler if you don't split your postings unless
enough of your readership complains about not being able to read your
FAQ in its entirety.

--
Ping Huang <pshuang@mit.edu>
  Disclaimer: unless explicitly otherwise stated, my
  statements represent my personal viewpoints only.

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